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Most Important Thing: Legislative Reform of the National Security System
"The national security system that the president uses to manage the instruments of national power, and the manner in which Congress oversees and funds the system, do not permit the agility required to protect the United States and its interests in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world. From 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and emerging threats to the homeland, 21st-century national security challenges demand more effective communication across traditional organizational boundaries. Meeting these challenges requires a common vision and organizational culture and better integration of expertise and capabilities. The current national security system was based on lessons from World War II and was designed to enable the president to fight the Cold War. Many of the assumptions underpinning this system are no longer valid. The world has moved on, and the United States needs to adjust commensurately to the new realities impinging on its security. The current system gives the president a narrow range of options for dealing with national security affairs and causes an over-reliance on the military instrument of national power. The cost of not changing this system is fiscally unsustainable and could be catastrophic in terms of American lives. To make needed changes, the U.S. government requires comprehensive reform of the statutory, regulatory, and congressional oversight authorities that govern the 60-year-old national security system."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Locher, James R., 1946-
2008-05
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We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War
"The Combat Studies Institute (CSI) is pleased to present Long War Series Occasional Paper 26, 'We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War' by CSI historian Mr. Matt M. Matthews. The outcome of the war that was, at best, a stalemate for Israel has confounded military analysts throughout the world. Long considered the most professional and powerful army in the Middle East, with a history of impressive military victories against its enemies, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige severely tarnished. Matthews's historical analysis of the war includes an examination of IDF and Hezbollah doctrine prior to the war, as well as an overview of the operational and tactical problems encountered by the IDF during the war. His research convincingly argues that the Israeli reliance on poorly understood and controversial Effects-Based Operations (EBO) and Systemic Operational Design (SOD) warfighting theories, and a nearly singular dependence on air power, were root causes of Israeli problems. Additionally, after years of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories, IDF ground forces were tactically unprepared and untrained to fight against a determined Hezbollah force that conducted what was, in many ways, a conventional, fixed-position defense. In researching this study, Mr. Matthews interviewed several prominent IDF officers and other experts in the field, many of whom had not previously been interviewed. The result is an insightful, comprehensive examination of the war. In 2006, Hezbollah demonstrated that terrorist groups around the world are capable of learning from, adapting to, and exploiting weaknesses in conventional military forces. Inasmuch as the US Army has focused almost exclusively on irregular warfare since 2001, the lessons offered in this analysis are particularly relevant."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Matthews, Matt , 1959-
2008
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Threat Analysis: Organized Crime and Narco-Terrorism in Northern Mexico
"Organized crime syndicates are modern enemies of democracy that relentlessly engage in kidnapping and assassination of political figures, and traffic not only in addictive and lethal substances, but also increasingly in human beings. To create an environment conducive to success in their criminal interests, they engage in heinous acts intended to instill fear, promote corruption, and undermine democratic governance by undercutting confidence in government. […]. In the long term, such actions erode individual civil liberties in America and Mexico by undermining both governments' abilities to maintain societies in which the full exercise of civil liberties is possible. This danger is ominously evident on the Mexican side of the border, where 86 percent of those responding to a poll in Mexico City in 2004 said they would support government restrictions of their civil rights in order to dismantle organized crime […]. These views suggest that an extremely unhealthy sociopolitical environment is evolving at America's very doorstep. We should see this not as a collateral issue associated with the War on Terrorism, but as a national security issue deserving of the same level of interest, concern, and resourcing as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This article provides an ethnographic analysis of narco-terrorism, narcocorruption, and human trafficking in the northern states of Mexico, and an overview of Mexican organized crime and its destabilizing effect on Mexico's attempts to create a functioning, uncorrupt democracy."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Knowles, Gordon James
2008-01
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Toward Strategic Communication
"A number of articles in the press this past year have reported that political and military leaders are frustrated because the government does not have an integrated process for delivering 'strategic communication' on issues of national importance, particularly the War on Terrorism. Frustration over the inability to coordinate and synchronize public information activities has been vented toward the Department of Defense (DOD) and the military services. Others have voiced similar worries about a lack of cohesiveness and coordination within the Department of State and the National Security Council. In short, the question of how to transform public communication channels and methods to meet the challenges posed in an era of globalized, instantaneous, and ubiquitous media has caused concern and even alarm. Moreover, many, especially in the military, are worried that our enemies have already occupied and dominated the infosphere battlespace. Army doctrine has evolved greatly over the last three years to deal with this challenge. It acknowledges that the information domain truly is a battlespace and that acquisition of favorable media coverage supporting regional and national political objectives should be equated with seizing a form of key terrain. This view is reflected, for example, in Chapter 1 of the recently published FM [Field Manual] 3-24, 'Counterinsurgency', which states, 'The information environment is a critical dimension of such internal wars and insurgents attempt to shape it to their advantage.' The FM clearly recognizes that counterinsurgent operations must be equally sophisticated, flexible, and cognizant of the power of shaping information strategies. Against such a background then, let us ask, What is strategic communication? And how does it differ from the traditional means the government has used to inform the public?"
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Eder, Mari K.
2007-07
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Learning About Counterinsurgency
"Insurgency, it seems, is with us to stay--for a while, anyway. There are a number of reasons why insurgency--the use of subversion and armed conflict by an organized movement to overthrow a constitutional government--has become a form of conflict much in evidence at the start of the twenty-first century, and why it is unlikely to become less so in the years immediately ahead. Among the most obvious reasons are the erosion of the sovereignty of nation-states, the increase in the number of failed or failing states, the rise in intra-state conflict, the advent of transnational insurgency, and the perceived ability of terrorists to achieve their aims--'to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives.' Equally obvious--to insurgents, at least--is the technological battlefield superiority of the world's most powerful armed forces, and the resultant folly of taking on such armed forces on the conventional battlefield. Even if General Sir Rupert Smith may be overstating the case by declaring that 'war no longer exists,' he is surely right that war off the conventional battlefield, or 'war amongst the people,' is by far the more likely activity. There is, of course, nothing new about insurgency--the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provide plenty of examples of this type of warfare--and, therefore, no shortage of opportunities to learn lessons. But how well do militaries, in general, learn the lessons of counterinsurgency? What factors affect this learning process? And what might the answer to these questions tell us about how armed forces should approach the subject of learning about counterinsurgency in future? This article sets out to answer these questions."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Kiszely, John
2007
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Fourth Generation Warfare Evolves, Fifth Emerges
"Essentially, one of Al-Qaeda's leading strategists stated categorically that the group was using 4GW against the United States--and expected to win. Even this did not stimulate extensive discussion in the West, where the 9-11 attacks were seen as an anomaly, and the apparent rapid victories in Afghanistan and Iraq appeared to vindicate the Pentagon's vision of high-technology warfare. It was not until the Afghan and Iraqi insurgencies began growing and the continuing campaign against Al-Qaeda faltered that serious discussion of 4GW commenced in the United States. Yet today, even within the small community of writers exploring 4GW, there remains a range of opinions on how to define the concept and what its implications are. This is a healthy process and essential to the development of a sound concept because 4GW, like all previous forms of war, continues to evolve even as discussions continue. That brings me to the purpose of this article: to widen the discussion on what forms 4GW may take and to offer a possible model for the next generation of war: 5GW."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Hammes, Thomas X.
2007
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Developing a National Counterinsurgency Capability for the War on Terror
John Hillen calls for the incorporation of all instruments of national power in a national COIN strategic framework to facilitate working together on an operational basis in national, regional, and local contexts. "There is growing awareness in the national security community that civilian capacity to plan and conduct interagency operations does not exist in the U.S. Government and must be created. This is easier said than done; it will require each agency to look beyond its own domain to a shared understanding of problems and then agree on shared approaches to solving them. The lack of a strategic COIN framework inhibits interagency coordination of responsibilities for COIN operations, undermines our ability to build partner capacities, and detracts from our ability to build international coalitions dedicated to defeating enemy insurgents. Until we create such a framework, we will have no basis for organizational or curricula design that would institutionalize lessons learned and support the development of the skill sets, tools, and policies that would make us successful COIN operators."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Hillen, John
2007-01
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Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF-Philippines and the Indirect Approach
"The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have ushered in a new era of counterinsurgency to deal with Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent and terrorist organizations. The U.S. military's initial success in Afghanistan […] forced the enemy to adapt. To survive, Al-Qaeda has transformed itself into a flatter, more cellular organization that seeks to outsource much of its work. Thus, insurgency has become an Al-Qaeda priority in terms of rhetoric, recruitment, and spending. The connection between terrorism and insurgency is now well established, and in fact there is tremendous overlap between the two. The U.S. military, though, is struggling to adapt to protracted, insurgent-type warfare. America's affinity for high-tech conventional conflict and quick, kinetic, unilateral solutions that avoid contact with the local populace has slowed its response to this complex form of conflict. How, then, can the U.S. military tailor a more efficient, more effective approach to future military efforts against Al-Qaeda-linked groups around the globe? Specifically, how can the U.S. military implement a sustainable, low-visibility approach that is politically acceptable to our current and future partners, and that can help change the moderate Muslim community's perception of U.S. operations in the War on Terrorism (WOT)? The history of insurgent conflict during the Philippines Insurrection (1899- 1902), Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), and Hukbalahap Rebellion (1946- 1954) shows that successful COIN operations are protracted efforts that rely heavily on indigenous security forces. Therefore, the U.S. WOT strategy should emphasize working indirectly 'through, by, and with' indigenous forces and building their capacity to conduct effective operations against common enemies."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Wilson, Gregory
2006-11
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Organizing Intelligence for Counterinsurgency
"Effective, accurate, and timely intelligence is essential to conducting any form of warfare, including counterinsurgency operations, because the ultimate success or failure of the mission depends on the effectiveness of the intelligence effort. The function of intelligence in counterinsurgency is to facilitate an understanding of the populace, the host nation, the operational environment, and the insurgents so that commanders may address the issues driving the insurgency. Insurgencies, however, are notoriously difficult to evaluate. The organization of the standard military intelligence system, developed for major theater warfare rather than counterinsurgency, compounds the difficulty. Intelligence systems and personnel must adapt to the challenges of a counterinsurgency environment to provide commanders the intelligence they require. This is a 'best practice' in counterinsurgency, without which counterinsurgency efforts will likely fail."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Teamey, Kyle; Sweet, Jonathan
2006-09
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Reserve Component Mobilization: Improving Accountability, Effectiveness, and Efficiency
"A recent series of articles in USA Today revealed that more than 3 years after the invasion of Iraq, the military services were unable to state authoritatively how many service members have deployed. The Army was best able to answer the question, but what should have been a 'good news' story on this score was tainted by inconsistency among the various databases about the precise number of Soldiers who have participated in the Iraq campaign." This article looks at the factors contributing the discrepancies, and then looks at the steps the Army has taken to correct these errors. Some of the programs covered are U.S. Department of the Army Mobilization Processing System (DAMPS); Deployed Theater Accountability System (DTAS), and Deployment and Redeployment Tracking System (DARTS). The article concludes with an analysis of how these systems have both helped and aggravated the system, then offers a new system for tracking personnel status.
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Chapman, Dennis P.
2006-05
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Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq
"According to the National Strategy, weekly strategy sessions at the highest levels of the U.S. Government ensure that Iraq remains a top priority. […]. The multitracked approach (political, security, and economic) to counterinsurgency in Iraq has historical parallels with the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program of the Vietnam War era. Established in 1967, CORDS partnered civilian and military entities engaged in pacification of Vietnamese rural areas. The program enhanced rural security and local political and economic development and helped defeat the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency. Significantly, CORDS unified the efforts of the pacification entities by establishing unity of command throughout the combined civil-military organization. Lack of unity of effort is perhaps the most significant impediment to operational-level interagency action today. The victorious conditions the National Strategy describes might be unachievable if the interagency entities present in Iraq do not achieve unity of effort. To help achieve unity of effort, Multi-National Force--Iraq (MNF-I) and the Nation should consider adopting a CORDS-like approach to ensure integrated action and victory."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Coffey, Ross M.
2006-03
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CORDS/Phoenix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future
"As the United States ends its third year of war in Iraq, the military continues to search for ways to deal with an insurgency that shows no sign of waning. The specter of Vietnam looms large, and the media has been filled with comparisons between the current situation and the 'quagmire' of the Vietnam War. The differences between the two conflicts are legion, but observers can learn lessons from the Vietnam experience--if they are judicious in their search. For better or worse, Vietnam is the most prominent historical example of American counterinsurgency (COIN)--and the longest--so it would be a mistake to reject it because of its admittedly complex and controversial nature. An examination of the pacification effort in Vietnam and the evolution of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program provides useful insights into the imperatives of a viable COIN program."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Andrade, Dale; Willbanks, James H.
2006-03
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Principles, Imperatives, and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency
"America began the 20th century with military forces engaged in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the Philippines. Today, it is conducting similar operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a number of other countries around the globe. During the past century, Soldiers and Marines gained considerable experience fighting insurgents in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and now in Southwest Asia and the Middle East. Conducting a successful counterinsurgency requires an adaptive force led by agile leaders. While every insurgency is different because of distinct environments, root causes, and cultures, all successful COIN campaigns are based on common principles. All insurgencies use variations of standard frameworks and doctrine and generally adhere to elements of a definable revolutionary campaign plan. In the Information Age, insurgencies have become especially dynamic. Their leaders study and learn, exchange information, employ seemingly leaderless networks, and establish relationships of convenience with criminal gangs. Insurgencies present a more complex problem than conventional operations, and the new variants have a velocity that previous historical insurgencies never possessed."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Crane, Conrad C.; Nagl, John A., 1966-; Cohen, Eliot A. . . .
2006-03
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Strategic Aspects of Counterinsurgency
"After the fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Cold War, new debates began at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, about the changing nature of the threat environment. […]. Those who sought to learn about theoretical warfare areas other than Clausewitzian trinitarian warfare found but one elective on the subject of irregular warfare and could only learn about indirect war by reading Sun Tzu. Conventional military strategists did not hold counterinsurgency (COIN) and irregular warfare acolytes in high esteem. In fact, strategists marginalized COIN and irregular warfare, never regarding irregular warfare as worthy of strategic-level discussions. This attitude hindered the formulation of an unconventional warfare (UW) theory and kept irregular warfare out of strategic wargaming scenarios. In fact, strategists viewed counterinsurgency as a discipline with tactical and operational components that did not lend themselves to strategic consideration. Ironically, strategists continued to believe this even as all of the ingredients for a national security debate and the elevation of this form of war to a strategic art were forming around them. True strategic thinking on the subject of COIN and irregular warfare should consider time and space and the long strategic view. What will the critical areas for the global war on terrorism (GWOT) be in the near future? One day we will find ourselves out of Iraq and Afghanistan with our force postured for the next crisis. What strategic direction will we take, and what should we be prepared to accomplish?"
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Celeski, Joseph D.
2006-03
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Are the Maras Overwhelming Governments in Central America?
"Violence in Central America has grown so much in the last half decade that Colombia is no longer the homicide capital of the region. In fact, it now ranks fourth in that ignominious distinction behind El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.1 The violence is mostly due to the phenomenon of street gangs, also called pandillas or gangas, but most often maras. They have grown in number, sophistication, and stature and have largely overwhelmed the security forces of Central America's fledgling democracies. Altogether, these maras represent a significant threat to the security of the countries in the region. Numerous national, binational, multinational, regional, and hemispheric conferences have sought to address the problem."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Bruneau, Thomas C.
2006
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Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq
"The Army has learned a great deal in Iraq and Afghanistan about the conduct of counterinsurgency operations, and we must continue to learn all that we can from our experiences in those countries. The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not, in truth, the wars for which we were best prepared in 2001; however, they are the wars we are fighting and they clearly are the kind of wars we must master. America's overwhelming conventional military superiority makes it unlikely that future enemies will confront us head on. Rather, they will attack us asymmetrically, avoiding our strengths--firepower, maneuver, technology--and come at us and our partners the way the insurgents do in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is imperative, therefore, that we continue to learn from our experiences in those countries, both to succeed in those endeavors and to prepare for the future."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Petraeus, David Howell
2006-01
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Operation Knockout: Counterinsurgency in Iraq
"On 12 November 2005, Coalition and Iraqi forces demonstrated again the flexibility and agility so necessary for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations against a smart, adaptive foe. After concentrating large-scale operations for months in Ninewah and Al Anbar Provinces northwest and west of Baghdad, Coalition forces conducted a new, no-notice operation in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad. Named Operation Knockout, this successful action reinforced the tactics, techniques, and procedures needed to defeat the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
2005-11
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Persistent Surveillance and Its Implications for the Common Operating Picture
"The idea of persistent surveillance as a transformational capability has circulated within the national intelligence community and the Department of Defense (DOD) for at least 3 years. Persistent surveillance, also known as persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); persistent stare; and pervasive knowledge of the adversary, is an often-used term to describe the need for and application of future ISR capabilities to qualitatively transform intelligence support to operational and tactical commands. The idea surfaces in many forms, including defense program reviews and congressional testimony. Each expression envisions a system achieving near-perfect knowledge and removing uncertainty in war. Persistence means that when global, theater, or local reconnaissance finds something of intelligence or actionable interest, ISR systems, including processing and analytic systems, maintain constant, enduring contact with the target. This increases understanding about the target, which enables a faster decision cycle at all levels of command and supports the application of precision force to achieve desired effects. Persistent surveillance integrates the human component and various technologies and processes across formerly stove piped domains; it is not a permanent stare from space or from airborne imagery platforms. In essence, the targeted entity will be unable to move, hide, disperse, deceive, or otherwise break contact with the focused intelligence system. Once achieved, persistent ISR coverage will, in theory, deny the adversary sanctuary, enabling coherent decision making and action with reduced risk."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Pendall, David W.
2005-11
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Drug Wars, Counterinsurgency, and the National Guard
"The United States is engaged in two wars: the war on drugs and the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). These conflicts have stretched U.S. special operation forces (SOF) thin. Many units are in their third overseas deployment in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom. I recently deployed to Iraq, where I was assigned to Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - Arabian Peninsula. There, I witnessed firsthand how skills learned during domestic counterdrug missions could directly affect the success of counterinsurgency operations. My 8 years of U.S. Army National Guard (ARNG) counterdrug experience proved helpful in solving some of the problems conventional forces faced. Observing how frequently counterdrug skills resembled the skills of SOF soldiers, I wondered how to leverage the Guard Counterdrug Support Programs (NGCDSPs) uniqueness to help support overburdened SOF and combatant commanders."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Cole, Reyes Z.
2005-11
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Canadian Military Emergency Response: Highly Effective, but Rarely Part of the Plan
"Generally, Americans like to keep their soldiers out of civilian business. Fearing the potential oppression of a standing army, in 1787 the Nations founding fathers sought to constrain it in the Constitution. That attitude still resonates with many Americans today. They might occasionally vote former generals into public office, but the idea of an active duty officer forcibly inserting himself into civil affairs is abhorrent. Even in times of domestic calamity the U.S. Army has been expected to maintain a relative distance: It could intervene, but only after a request from civil authorities, and its efforts were to be secondary to those launched by civil authorities. In short, the Army was to subordinate itself unequivocally to civilian leadership. The 2005 hurricane season might have changed some of that thinking. The response to Hurricane Katrina caused President George W. Bush to wonder aloud about expanding the Army's role in domestic emergencies. But if that role is expanded, how might a still-skeptical public react? How should the comport itself to allay suspicion about its motives?"
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Scanlon, Joseph
2005-11
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New Master of Wizard's Chess: The Real Hugo Chavez and Asymmetric Warfare
"Beginning with the election of Hugo Chavez Frias as President of Venezuela in 1998, the United States and Venezuela have exchanged a continuous series of acrimonious charges and countercharges. Each country has repeatedly argued that the other is engaged in a political, economic, military struggle for Western Hemisphere hegemony. […]. Who is this man, Hugo Chavez? How can the innumerable charges and countercharges between the Venezuelan and U.S. governments be interpreted? What are the implications for democracy and stability in Latin America? In an attempt to answer these and related questions, we center our analysis on the contemporary geopolitical conflict context of current Venezuelan 'Bolivarian' policy. To accomplish this, a basic understanding of the historical, political, and institutional context within which national security policy is generated is an essential first step toward understanding the situation as a whole. Then, a 'levels of analysis' approach will provide a systematic understanding of how geopolitical conflict options have a critical influence on the logic that determines how such a policy as bolivarianismo might be implemented in the contemporary world security arena. This is the point from which we can generate strategic-level recommendations for maintaining and enhancing stability in Latin America."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Manwaring, Max G.
2005-09
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International Law and Terrorism
"We have been operating under the impression that the International Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) is inimical to our effective prosecution of the war on terrorism. But what has come to be called lawfare is a weapon that rightly belongs in the hands of those who abide by the LOAC. I submit that our problem lies not with the LOAC, but with our failure to make our own superior claim to legitimacy over terror warfare. We have also failed to exploit legitimacy's strategic advantages in order to sever terrorist organizations and their sponsor states from the public support on which their success depends. Instead of dealing with the hyper-legalization of warfare with an uncoordinated series of isolated tactical solutions of opportunity, we need to develop a comprehensive, proactive lawfighting doctrine of our own. […]. Another possibility is to spearhead a movement to put real teeth into the LOAC in the form of provisions explicitly outlining sanctions for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Should we be successful, we must be prepared to see members of our own military tried for isolated violations such as those at Abu Ghraib. If we do a proper job of educating our troops to our moral and legal expectations, such incidents will be rare. But our enemies' entire way of war would be on trial before the court of public opinion because no way exists for terrorists to conduct war that does not contravene the LOAC."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Kellogg, Davida E.
2005-09
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Using Biometrics to Achieve Identity Dominance in the Global War on Terrorism
"Just as the U.S. military has established its superiority in other arts of war, now, working with other U.S. Government organizations, it must strive for identity dominance over terrorist and national security threats who pose harm to American lives and interests. In the context of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), identity dominance means U.S. authorities could link an enemy combatant or similar national-security threat to his previously used identities and past activities, particularly as they relate to terrorism and other crimes. The U.S. military needs to know whether a person encountered by a warfighter is a friend or foe. […]. Fortunately, biometric technologies, based on a person's physiological or behavioral traits, can indelibly link a person to an identity or event. Names can be changed and documents forged, but a biometric is much less susceptible to alteration and forgery. Moreover, although many people have the same or similar names and many documents look alike, a person's biometrics tend to be robust and distinctive."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Woodward, John D., Jr.
2005-09
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Best Practices in Counterinsurgency
"We can discern 'best practices' common to successful counterinsurgencies by studying the past century's insurgent wars. Historical analysis helps us understand the nature and continuities of insurgencies over time and in various cultural, political, and geographic settings. While this does not produce a template solution to civil wars and insurrections, the sum of these experiences, judiciously and appropriately applied, might help Iraq defeat its insurgency. Nations on every continent have experienced or intervened in insurgencies. Not counting military coups and territorially defined civil wars, there are 17 insurgencies we can study closely and 36 others that include aspects we can consider. (See chart 1.) Assessment reveals which counterinsurgency practices were successful and which failed. A strategic victory does not validate all the victor's operational and tactical methods or make them universally applicable, as America's defeat in Vietnam and its success in El Salvador demonstrate. In both cases, 'learning more from one's mistakes than one's achievements' is a valid axiom. If we were to combine all the successful operational practices from a century of counterinsurgent warfare, the summary would suggest a campaign outline to combat the insurgency in present-day Iraq."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Sepp, Kalev I.
2005-05
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Evolution of Information Operations at Brigade and Below
"The Post-Cold War paradigm for U.S. forces in combat and in military operations other than war (MOOTW) is increasingly a nonlinear battlespace where brigades and battalions conduct independent operations in assigned sectors. In post-combat and peace-support operations, nonkinetic/nonlethal means are often the main effort. The new paradigm is changing the way the Army plans, coordinates, executes, and conducts information- operations (IO) and IO-effects assessment at brigade and below. Responsibility for information operations is devolving to brigades and battalions, forcing them to create brigade and battalion IO cells and develop tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in an ad hoc manner. Units in Iraq and Afghanistan are writing the next chapter on the formation of IO cells at brigade and below. They are testing and refining organizational models, TTP, and SOPs that will become the new model. The field artillery branch, which has assumed the lead for integrating information operations at the tactical level, must capture these lessons learned and incorporate them into doctrine, training curriculums, and TTP for field artillery personnel who will serve as FSIOs, S7s, and S39s, and for Career Field 30 field-grade rank IO personnel who will direct their operations."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Tulák, Arthur; Broome, Kelly R.; Bennett, Donnie S.
2005-04
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French Algeria and British Northern Ireland: Legitimacy and the Rule of Law in Low-Intensity Conflict
This document outlines the critical importance of civilian control of the military, rigid adherence to the rule of law, and accountability of soldiers for their actions. "The Post-Cold War world, with its small wars of ethnic nationalism; tribal and religious conflict; and localized and global terrorism is not so different from Europe during the era of decolonization in the late 1950s and 1960s. The ethnic and religious roots of many of the world's current conflicts derive from the period when Europe shed its empires and much of the developing world gained independence. One critical lesson of the European wars of decolonization is the need to maintain legitimacy while conducting low-intensity conflict (LIC) operations. Without legitimacy, a democratic nation cannot hope to prosecute operations to a successful conclusion."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Campbell, James D.
2005-04
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Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship
"Countering the insurgency in Iraq requires cultural and social knowledge of the adversary. Yet, none of the elements of U.S. national power--diplomatic, military, intelligence, or economic--explicitly take adversary culture into account in the formation or execution of policy. This cultural knowledge gap has a simple cause--the almost total absence of anthropology within the national-security establishment. Once called 'the handmaiden of colonialism,' anthropology has had a long, fruitful relationship with various elements of national power, which ended suddenly following the Vietnam War. The strange story of anthropology's birth as a warfighting discipline, and its sudden plunge into the abyss of postmodernism, is intertwined with the U.S. failure in Vietnam. The curious and conspicuous lack of anthropology in the national-security arena since the Vietnam War has had grave consequences for countering the insurgency in Iraq, particularly because political policy and military operations based on partial and incomplete cultural knowledge are often worse than none at all. Unfortunately, anthropologists, whose assistance is urgently needed in time of war, entirely neglect U.S. forces. Despite the fact that military applications of cultural knowledge might be distasteful to ethically inclined anthropologists, their assistance is necessary."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
McFate, Montgomery
2005-04
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Iraq: Italian Lessons Learned
"Italy must spend more resources to adequately prepare and equip Italian soldiers to fight in urbanized areas and buy tactical UAVs and more observation devices to help identify the enemy. Italian forces also need more heavy weapons (tanks, combat helicopters, and self-propelled artillery) at the inception of military operations. Italy's armed forces should launch an information operations campaign to teach Italian politicians about the military instrument's potentialities and limits. Some Italian decisionmakers suffer a knowledge deficiency in military affairs. When the bullets fly, this is unacceptable."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Cappelli, Riccardo
2005-04
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Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention: Strategic and Tactical Implications
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is the first multilateral treaty to require the elimination of an entire category of WMD under strict international monitoring. Critics in the United States argue that complying with the CWC treaty is expensive and leaves the United States with an inability to respond to threats from rouge states that do not accede to the treaty, clandestine violators, or terrorists who are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty. The article, however, argues that the CWC is in our national interest, and the treaty is the best means available to prevent chemical weapons, or associated production facilities, from falling into the hands of violators.
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Platteborze, Peter L.
2005-03
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Theater Immersion: Postmobilization Training in the First Army
"Theater immersion rapidly builds combat-ready formations led by competent, confident leaders who see first, understand first, and act first; battleproofed soldiers inculcated with the warrior ethos man the formations. Theater immersion places--as rapidly as possible--leaders, soldiers, and units into an environment that approximates what they will encounter in combat. At the soldier level, training is tough, realistic, hands-on, repetitive, and designed to illicit intuitive soldier responses. It thrusts formations into a theater analog soon after they arrive at their mobilization station and places stress on the organization from individual to brigade levels. Theater immersion is a combat training center-like experience that replicates conditions downrange while training individual- through brigade-level collective tasks."
U.S. Army Combined Arms Center
Zajac, Daniel L.; Honore, Russell L.
2005-01
