I was wrong about SecDef Gates - here is a more accurate view of him

I apologize to those of you who read yesterday’s post about Secretary of Defense Gates.  I read his recent speeches with my mind closed.  Fortunately Tom Engelhardt sees what the rest of us overlook.  Consider Gates’ 4 April speech at West Point.

Last year I read Partners in Command, a book by Mark Perry. It is an account of the unique relationship between Eisenhower and General George Marshall … one of the things I found compelling is how they were both influenced by another senior Army officer who is not nearly as well-known and in fact, as a reader of history, I had never heard of.

His name is Fox Conner, a tutor and mentor to both Eisenhower and Marshall. … From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leadership and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:

• Never fight unless you have to;
• Never fight alone;
• And never fight for long.

All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and strategically sound. We’ve heard variants of them in the decades since, perhaps most recently in the Powell doctrine.

But of course, all things are not equal, particularly when you think about the range and complexity of the threats facing America today, from the wars we are in to the conflicts we are most likely to fight. So tonight I’d like to discuss with you how you should think about applying Fox Conner’s three axioms to the security challenges of the 21st century, the challenges where you will be on the front lines.

Gates then explains that we will no longer follow these principles — and will do the opposite.  This is the build-up to the heart of the speech (bold emphasis added):

Roads in Afghanistan, a new weapon to win 4GW’s?

A new article by Dr. David Kilcullen: “Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency“, posted at the Small Wars Council (24 April 2008) — “Road-Building in Afghanistan, Part 1 of a Series on Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency”

Over the past eight years Kilcullen has laid a profound theoretical foundation for COIN on which he has written many articles rich with operational insights and recommendations. Here is a full archive of his work: The Essential 4GW reading list: David Kilcullen.

One fascinating aspect of Kilcullen’s work is the relative absence of critical review. Such attention is usually an indicator of significance, and his work is powerful in both an intellectual and operational sense. Why so little analytical attention? Even Newton and Einstein had their critics.

I posted this question (and a link to my archive of Kilcullen’s work) in the comments at both the Small Wars Journal and at Zenpundit. The SWJ Editor(s) deleted both (too disturbing to the troops, perhaps). At the Zenpundit there were two replies. First, from the Zenpundit himself:

Ready, Aim, “foreign policy” away

An important new report on a subject of vital importance to America, one that has been much-discussed here.

“Ready, Aim, Foreign Policy“, a joint publication from the Center for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America (March 2008) — “How the Pentagon’s role in foreign policy is growing, and why Congress — and the American public — should be worried.”

As public debate focuses on the war in Iraq, a disturbing transformation of U.S. foreign policy decision-making is quietly underway. The Defense Department’s leadership of foreign military aid and training programs is increasing. The State Department, which once had sole authority to direct and monitor such programs, is ceding control.  Moreover, changes to the U.S. military’s geographic command structure could grant the military a greater role in shaping, and becoming the face of, U.S. foreign policy where it counts-on the ground.

These seemingly arcane changes will diminish congressional, public and even diplomatic control over a substantial lever and symbol of foreign policy.  They will undercut human rights values in our relations with the rest of the world, and increase the trend toward a projection of U.S. global power based primarily on military might.

An article by Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service provides some useful background information (”Foreign Policy Increasingly Flows Through Pentagon“, 6 March 2008):

Reports by Congress’ Government Accountability Office and even the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) have echoed concerns that the influence and operations of the State Department and other civilian agencies operating in countries overseas have been overwhelmed by the much greater resources and manpower of the Pentagon and its combatant commands.

“(The) bleeding of civilian responsibilities from civilian to military agencies risks weakening the secretary of State’s primacy in setting the agenda for U.S. relations with foreign countries and the secretary of Defence’s focus on warfighting,” according to an SFRC report issued in December 2006.

The Essential 4GW reading list: David Kilcullen

Contents

1. A brief note about Kilcullen and his work.
2. Kilcullen’s major works
3. Kilcullen’s other works (minor only in comparison with his major works)
4. My reviews of Kilcullen’s work
5. A selction of articles about Kilcullen in the mainstream media
6. Articles about the Revolt of the Anthropologists against “militarization” of their science
7. Other articles in this series

I.  A brief note about Kilcullen and his work

Soldier.  Adviser to both Coalition governments and their front-line company commanders.  Advocate of the war on terrorism.  Kilcullen’s work explains how to think about insurgencies (as biological systems, in “Countering Global Insurgencies”), how to fight insurgencies on every level from a single community to the entire world, and warns of imperial overstretch (ibid).

Analysts of modern warfare (herein called 4GW) can be divided into two groups.  First, those who believe that western nations — led by the USA — have the right, resources, and ability to successfully wage offensive “war” (broadly defined) against a global Islamic threat.  Second, there are those who disagree with one or more elements of that proposition.  Kilcullen is one of best-known and most skillful experts in the first group.

The articles he published while a Coalition adviser have few precedents in wartime.  Imagine an adviser to General MacArthur or General Eisenhower writing about our strategy, tactics, and progress during WWII, as Kilcullen has about and even from Iraq.  Is the government using the Internet to accelerate our Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action loops, tapping into the expertise and creativity of our citizenry?  Or info-warfare to sustain support for the war, propaganda on a new and more sophisticated level?  It’s something for historians to debate, as we cannot know.

If the former, has this worked?  Note the lack of analysis Kilcullen’s work has received.  Much attention, even adulation.  But, so far as I can find, few articles providing analysis or review.  Given the quality of his work, its importance, and the controversial nature of its subject, this is not only extraordinary but also unfortunate. 

Arrows in the Eagle’s claw - solutions to 4GW

This series describes the various types of solutions to modern warfare, herein called fourth generation warfare (4GW).  It will attempt to show their relationship to one another and their relative potential.  4GW appears to be the dominant form of warfare in the 21st century, so mastery of it might prove necessary for America’s prosperity or even survival.  This is a topology, a wide perspective view of writings about 4GW.  Future chapters will examine these divisions in more detail.

Analysts – the foundation of the pyramid

This first class of work provides analysis, drawing on a diverse range of resources including history, military theory, and the social sciences.  This is foundational to the development of solutions, for nothing can be done except by luck without a deep understanding of

• our situation (strengths, weaknesses, goals, etc),
• the other players on the world stage (both state and non-state actors),
• and the almost infinite range of scenarios possible in the near and far future. 

Since everyone working with 4GW does some combination of analysis and recommendations, I include in this group those whose work focuses on more on description than prescription.  Applied to individuals, any simple categorization is somewhat arbitrary.

Readers of journals in this field — such as  DNI, Parameters, or the Marine Corps Gazette — will see that this category of work is by far the largest both in volume and number of writers.  It includes, just to name a few,  Martin van Creveld, David Kilcullen, Chet Richards, and John Robb.

Visionaries — another important component of the foundation

Kilcullen explains all you need to know about the Iraq War

Part VII of a series about America’s new Long War

Occasionally an expert writes something that perfectly captures the spirit of an endeavor, on multiple levels. The Iraq War has as yet no master chronicler, as TE Lawrence captured the WWI Arab Revolt or David Halberstam the Vietnam War. Until then the best we have is this new presentation by David Kilcullen (Ph.D., LTC Australian Army Reserve):

Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007 ( 2.6 MB PPT on the Small Wars Journal site)
A seminar at the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, Virginia.
September 26, 2007

He explains not only how we have fought the war, but also (implicitly, perhaps inadvertently) why we are losing. Reading it evokes memories of Vietnam, our first 4GW (also run by our best and brightest).

These are preliminary comments, made in advance of Dave Dilegge’s notes to be posted soon at the Small Wars Council, and later production of a DVD providing a full video. I urge you to look at the slides of Kilcullen’s presentation; I found them very enlightening.

Stories or statistics? Read and compare to find the truth!

Part III of a series about our Long War

There is no substitute for being on the ground if you want a sense of where Iraq may be headed. The reality is almost always different when you smell it up close.

Ralph Peters, “Iraq Inspection“, New York Post (4 September 2007)

As we move through our new “long war” the fog surrounds us at home as much as those at the front. We cannot know the truth; we can only try to understand. We have two tools to do so. First, through quantitative measures - statistics, trends, and sampling. Second, through first-person accounts.

Statistics give us a blurred vision of Iraq. First, there is no functioning central government to reliably collect data. Second, like most war zones Iraq has no neutral sources of data. Still, as described in Part II of this series, publicly available statistics show little or no improvement in significant metrics during the “Surge.”

Eyewitnesses give us color, impressions, and insights - what Peters calls “smell.” Pro-war websites showcase descriptions from those “who’ve been there” - often disputing the other source of first-person testimony: journalists. These clashing accounts show the limits of eyewitnesses. Can foreigners briefly walk around a large and complex foreign land - with little knowledge of the local culture and none of the language - and draw reliable conclusions? Or do they return with stories, Iraqi dirt on their shoes, but all preconceptions intact and misperceptions reinforced?

There is a drastic solution. We could wire observers and send them to every corner of Iraq. We would learn much from transcripts of their conversations with the locals. Insurgents would capture some, perhaps many. Transcripts of their interrogation, torture, and execution would also be enlightening, especially to our pacifists and die-hard multiculturalists.

I anticipate few volunteers for this role, although it exemplifies the harsh moral dilemmas of fourth generation warfare. What are the lives of a few hundred volunteers, perhaps members of the military, compared to the 4,000+ Coalition soldiers lost so far? Is this price too high to pay for accurate intelligence? Such calculations appear routine for our enemies.

Other than through such drastic measures, how can we make the best of what data we have? Discarding the chaff of reports by untrained and inexperienced observers, that leaves those by different kinds of professionals. Here we look at two articles by professionals, each with a different perspective on the war. Both deserve careful reading, from which you can draw your own conclusions.

America takes another step towards the “Long War”

Summary:  This report is just a sketch, some thoughts that hopefully spark discussion about America’s rush to war. It proposes the following:

1. There is as yet insufficient evidence that America is threatened sufficiently to justify the large-scale mobilization of citizens that we call “war.”
2. There is insufficient public evidence that al Qaeda or Islamic jihadists are so serious a threat.
3. The war was begun in Iraq and Afghanistan with inadequate analysis and planning, and those errors continue to this day.
4. Even if this threat is of sufficient magnitude, war is not necessarily the solution.
5. To the extent that force is required, at present we are not equipped to employ it in the manner needed. A scimitar makes a fine weapon, but a poor scalpel.

Introduction

Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis, Chapter 12 (1959)

The flood of information and commentary available today can obscure events of the greatest significance. We see that today, as America takes another step towards the long war. Without thought or reflection, without debate by our elected officials, without our consent. In many ways just like the Cold War.

If the US starts a new long war, it is our war - for good or ill. Congress and the President are our agents no matter how they conduct our affairs. As bin Laden reminds us, following our leaders does not relieve us of responsibility.  Wars put all that we that we have, all that we are, on the table to be won or lost. Before we enlist ourselves and our children in a new war, let’s think. Is the wager worthwhile? Are the odds in our favor? Are there alternatives other than war?

In the past we have neglected these questions to our sorrow.

Contents

Why We Lose at 4GW

From “Knowing the Enemy“, George Packer, The New Yorker  (12 December 2006) 

In 2004, when McFate had a fellowship at the Office of Naval Research, she got a call from a science adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had been contacted by battalion commanders with the 4th Infantry Division in a violent sector of the Sunni Triangle, in Iraq. “We’re having a really hard time out here-we have no idea how this society works,” the commanders said. “Could you help us?” The science adviser replied that he was a mathematical physicist, and turned for help to one of the few anthropologists he could find in the Defense Department.

This pitiful little vignette shows one reason why we lose: structural failures in the Department of Defense. Among the thousands of support people in DoD, a battalion commander found nobody better to help understand Iraq than a mathematical physicist. A science advisor to the Joint Chiefs found no better expert on the Middle East than an anthropologist with no specific expertise in that area.

From this a logician could infer the full story of America’s inability to successfully wage 4th Generation Wars (4GW), just as from a drop of water “a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other” (Sherlock Holmes in “A Study in Scarlet,” part 1, chapter 2).  However, logicians are rare. For the rest of us, here is a brief attempt to explain one of the great puzzles of our time: why the US has lost - is losing - and will continue to lose - 4th Generation Wars (4GW).

Introduction

An early symptom of impending defeat is loss of confidence in one’s tactical doctrines. In a strong military culture, though, this can spark a burst of creativity. In WWI, this resulted in the perfection by the German Army of infiltration tactics. Later, with new technology, this became blitzkrieg.

How has the prospect of defeat in Iraq affected the US military?