SWJ Book Review by Matthew Caris
A Question of Command (Full PDF Article)
A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq by Mark Moyar, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009, 368 pp., $30.
Critics claim American counterinsurgency theory has become dogmatic, too fixated on making major political, economic, or even societal changes in order to combat insurgencies. Ralph Peters, Bing West, and others have written that proponents pay too much attention to the "truisms" that pervade FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, and not enough to killing insurgents. This is how Mark Moyar frames the COIN debate in the first chapter of his book A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq. Dr. Moyar, a professor at the Marine Corps University, argues that both sides in this debate miss the real determinant in success or failure in COIN: leadership. Contending that insurgency is at its core a power struggle between competing elites, Moyar makes the case that the side that marshals better leadership, as defined by ten essential traits of commanders for COIN, will emerge victorious. He argues the particular tactics employed do not necessarily matter, though he tends to favor kinetic methods over the kinds of nonmilitary means often prescribed by COIN theorists. The book examines nine historical cases: the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Philippine Insurrection, the Huk Rebellion, Malaya, Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In each, Moyar examines the performance of counterinsurgent leaders, and how their leadership values (or lack thereof) affected the outcome.
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Comments
Matt:
Thank you for the response -- we're pretty much in agreement.
As a reminder, I also am not a 3-24 fan -- it was needed, is better than nothing and I'm glad we have it on the street. However, it is far too wordy, reads like a high school textbook and indeed and in general is, as you say, a little light...<blockquote>"I don't like sound judgment being equated with excellent leadership. Surely some of the traits of excellent leaders have been put towards prosecuting unwise strategies."</blockquote>I seriously doubt you can have one without the other. I would say that some showing the traits of charismatic or effective leaders have prosecuted unwise strategies -- but leadership has little or no bearing at the level of strategy and, more importantly, charismatic and effective leaders are not automatically excellent leaders. Far from it.
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The few that merit that accolade are astute and knowledgeable enough to do the right things and can think rapidly enough to get there first with the most -- that's why they are excellent. The <i>very</i> few excellent leaders I have seen were that in large part because they did not pursue unwise ends and ignored echelon above reality distractors. I'd also suggest they are born, not made -- you can make a good enough leader, the great ones transcend good enough, charisma and poor training and education...<blockquote>"...does not thoroughly explain why each COIN leader did or did not have these virtues and thus succeeded or failed, instead often just describing success as "good leadership" and failure as "bad leadership," it is deeply unsatisfying."</blockquote>Understandable and I agree -- though will suggest that often when one adheres to a theme, particularly one that is intuitively correct but requires subjective judgment, attempting to find historical examples, 'empirical data' and adequate detail to fully support one's aim for academic consumption can be difficult.
I haven't read the book and probably will not. My questions were for clarification, you and Tequila provided that and I thank you.
My comments were and are aimed at a broader audience to point out that good leadership is important in all wars -- and that we do not cultivate that nearly as well as we should or could.
Tequila, thanks for clarifying on my behalf; that is indeed what I was saying.
Ken:
I completely agree that "leadership wins battles or wars, COIN or otherwise." See my sig-line. My problems with Moyar's book - perhaps not as clear or well-articulated as they should have been - are twofold.
Firstly. Perhaps this is just my personal reaction, but chalking everything up to leadership in the manner in which Moyar does is immensely unsatisfying. Henry Halleck was a good COIN leader because he canned some of Fremont's politically-appointed and utterly incompetent subordinates? I mean, yes, technically that's good leadership and a wise decision, but I don't like sound judgment being equated with excellent leadership. Surely some of the traits of excellent leaders have been put towards prosecuting unwise strategies. Or, in Moyar's case, if the COIN effort fails, the leadership problem gets bumped up or down a few levels of the command chain. In the Civil War, I suppose it's Lincoln/Stanton/Grant's fault for not devoting enough resources and competent officers to the effort. Then again, maybe "keeping the ball rolling," in Grant's words, against Lee, Johnston, and company was the right decision.
Again, I do not question the importance of leadership, in COIN or otherwise. I do argue that when he offers up 10 values of a good COIN leader (Initiative, Flexibility, Creativity, Judgment, Empathy, Charisma, Sociability, Dedication, Integrity, Organization) - which are probably desirable in all commanders, COIN, conventional, or corporate - and then does not thoroughly explain why each COIN leader did or did not have these virtues and thus succeeded or failed, instead often just describing success as "good leadership" and failure as "bad leadership," it is deeply unsatisfying.
The second issue I have is also colored, of course, by my own perceptions of the "COIN debate" that Moyar and many others make so much of. You're right, as far as explicitly describing leadership necessities for COIN and "making leaders," FM 3-24 is a little light. But Moyar's attacks - fairly constant throughout the book - on the manual are the same ones we've heard before, that I think miss the point. In saying that it is too focused on nonmilitary action, too dogmatic (I think of COL Gentile railing against "sometimes the best weapons for counterinsurgents do not shoot" or "sometimes the more you protect yourself the less secure you are") and fails to cultivate the kind of initiative and decentralized leadership capable of adapting to local conditions necessary for success in COIN, Moyar utterly misses what I think was the point of the manual.
I am in no position to argue your perception of leadership deficiencies within the services, and indeed in my nonexistent experience and limited education about the matter, I'd say you're probably right. But if the Army is really relying on a Field Manual to cultivate leaders, in COIN or anything else, I'd say our problems run deeper than FM 3-24. My reading of FM 3-24 (and the population-centric theorists that Moyar likewise attacks - thinking particularly of Kilcullen's "28 Articles" here) gave me the sense that the doctrine does try to kickstart initiative, flexibility, and emphasize the very different, complicated and ambiguous situations junior leaders will face in a COIN environment. It is about providing context and how to grasp problems they were otherwise unprepared for. Does that go far enough? Maybe not, I don't think I'm qualified to judge that.
But I certainly believe that Moyar, by framing his thesis in this context of attacking the doctrine and the population theorists, misses the point of what some of those works were trying to teach soldiers and Marines.
Thanks to all for your views and comments,
Matt
tequila:
As I look at it again, I think you may be correct. Thanks. I'm slow today...
There are indeed many mentions of leadership in FM 3-24 and Chapter 7 is devoted to "Leadership and Ethics for Counterinsurgency." However, the Preface to that Chapter ends with this:<blockquote>"Those in
leadership positions must provide the moral compass for their subordinates as they navigate this complex environment. Underscoring these imperatives is the fact that exercising leadership in the midst of ambiguity requires intense, discriminating pro-fessional judgment."</blockquote>That gives you an indication that the bulk of effort will be focused on telling all to play nice -- it really says very little about leadership per se.
The bulk of the chapter is divided like this:
- Leadership in Counterinsurgency: Three paragraphs.
- Large and Small Unit Leadership Tenets: 17 paragraphs
- Ethics: Five paragraphs *
- Warfighting versus Policing: Four paragraphs *
- Proportionality asnd Discrimination: Eight paragraphs *
- Detention and Interrogation: Six paragraphs *
- The Learning Imperative: Four paragraphs *
- Summary: One paragraph
Those items with an asterisk (*) have little or nothing to do with Leadership and are properly TTP items. Thus the Leadership Chapter has 27 paragraphs addressing other subjects as opposed to 21 paragraphs addressing Leadership -- and the majority of those are boiler plate of dubious value with far more emphasis on morality and ethics than on leadership.
Morality and ethics are important but they're a separate topic and are a military imperative in any event -- thus, a great deal of effort on those topics is an indicator of problems elsewhere...
Not Moyar's point in any event, I suspect. Based on the review, Moyar is making the point that good leaders win wars or battles (COIN or otherwise). I totally agree with that premise.
If you're correct, the Reviewer makes the mistake of thinking that since FM3-24 discusses -- and that's all it does -- leadership, the problem is taken care of.
Not that simple. Great leaders are born but good leaders can be developed by decent education and training. Regrettably, our (US Army and USMC) leadership training is lackluster and mediocre at best and the system discourages good leaders because it stifles innovation and initiative. It discourages flexibility and encourages group think. It prizes centralized decision making and discourages the real leader development tool, decentralized execution and delegation of authority (in fairenss, FM 3-24 and many other manual pay lip service to this but it is not done...).
That there are good Army and Marine leaders is a tribute to individuals and not to the system. Some individual encourage others to bypass the system; some do it on their own -- if it weren't for those, the system would strangle itself.
Leadership is important, it is also basically easy -- Know your job; do your job and, most of all, be fair. There are too many in positions of authority that do not know their jobs that well because we train poorly.
There are too many in such positions who do not do their jobs because they're allowed to get away with not doing them because everyone is 'too busy' to punish minor stupidity or correct minor mistakes.
Most importantly, too many are not -- and the system itself is not -- fair because the emphasis on fairness has been misconstrued by some scattered at various places and levels throughout the system to mean tolerating poor performance in order to not be unkind. That in itself is the height of unfairness because it means your good guys get worked to death while the slackers survive.
We also have a system that says if you have X years of service, Y rank and Z education / training, you're qualified to be a ZA. Your leadership ability is not addressed well in that equation. But it is 'fair.' Thus we produce square pegs and make them fit in round holes -- you can do that but the peg has to be smaller than the hole...
Talking about leadership for part of nine pages in a 282 page book book does not make leaders.
I think Matthew is saying that Moyar claims that FM 3-24 does not discuss leadership as a key factor in fighting insurgencies. Matthew says FM 3-24 does discuss leadership explicitly. IIRC, FM 3-24 has an entire chapter on leadership and discusses it extensively in most of the other chapters, especially the one focused on unity of effort.
Matthew:
Interesting review, thank you. I do have three questions. You state:<blockquote>"it seems simplistic to suggest that decisions that facilitate effective COIN constitute excellent leadership while decisions that hamper do not. For instance, Moyar describes how in 1983 El Salvadoran leaders and their American advisers plotted a textbook oil-spot operational plan, yet were foiled by pre-emptive insurgent activity in other regions. Many factors contributed to this defeat, including relative slowness in implementation, over-deliberation, and superior intelligence on the part of insurgents who sniffed out the plan and struck first. It is an excellent example of the many problems counterinsurgents have to overcome to be successful, yet Moyar chalks it all up to inferior leadership."</blockquote>It may be simplistic but I do not believe you make the case that it is incorrect. Could better counterinsurgent leadership and less dithering (a function of leadership) have negated the insurgent's flexibility (also a leadership attribute) and intelligence information in the case discussed?
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You end with:<blockquote>"Written with the purpose of providing much-needed context and a method for understanding the problems leaders encounter in insurgencies, it does just that. Indeed, it encourages the initiative and innovativeness that Moyar describes as the kinds of good leadership the manual does not discuss. This is not accurate, and as a result, <i>A Question of Command</i> ends up somewhat less than the sum of its detailed and interesting case study parts."</blockquote>I suppose that may or may not be true and I might say if I understood the statement. <i>What</i> is not accurate?
Is it your premise that good leadership cannot be the prime determinant in counterinsurgency?