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Gian Gentile versus Abu Muqawama, Round 582
January 15, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 6:29pm | 82 Comments
I assume most of you have seen Gian Gentile's latest piece, in Foreign Policy. He takes a series of statements regarding defense policy and then offers a short argument in favor of or in opposition to each one. Always one to rise to the bait, here's my take on each:
"The U.S. military is still too focused on conventional warfare."
Gian Gentile: Absolutely not.
Abu Muqawama: You have got to be kidding me. Just look at the budget and where the money is being spent. Governing is budgeting. From the limited perspective of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, I could see where Gian might be able to argue that we have embraced COIN whole-heartedly. (As well we should have, as those are counter-insurgency campaigns.) But there are two other services in the U.S. military against whom the U.S. Army and Marine Corps compete for budget share. And the Congress, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the defense contractors, the defense industry, and many within the uniformed officer corps of all services have interests in keeping the U.S. military focused on conventional warfare -- and the big, expensive, job-producing weapons systems needed to fight conventional warfare.
"Small wars are the wars of the future."
Gian Gentile: Perhaps.
Abu Muqawama: Small wars are the way of the present and, likely, the future as well. But that does not mean the threat of large-scale state-on-state wars has gone away forever. That's just ridiculous. We more or less agree here.
"The surge worked in Iraq."
Gian Gentile: Not quite.
Abu Muqawama: I agree. I think it worked operationally and perhaps strategically but failed politically. Where Gian and I disagree is when he says that we in the U.S. Army were all doing the right things as early as the fall of 2003. Please. This is simply not true. The historical record does not bear this out, and I, for one, had a rather unfortunate front-row seat to history there.
"General Petraeus is a military genius."
Gian Gentile: Time will tell.
Abu Muqawama: Indeed, it will. And I don't know if the guy is a genius. But he's very smart -- militarily and politically. And he has done wonders so far. And it's not as if the United States has been blessed in its recent history with a lot of smart, competent generals. Can anyone name three current general officers of three or four stars better than Petraeus? So maybe he deserves the praise he gets.
"The military should embrace nation-building."
Gian Gentile: If those are the orders.
Abu Muqawama: Agreed. If those are the orders. Which they may well be until we can build capacity elsewhere and fix the inter-agency.
Now here's a question: Isn't there anyone other than Gian Gentile willing to take up the anti-COIN crusade? Where is everyone else? I want to ask him that when he visits the 202 area code in the next few weeks. (We're having dinner, actually, which I am greatly looking forward to.)
Update: Gian responds in the comments section. I have work to do and thus can't participate in what promises to be a lively debate, but that shouldn't stop you.
"The U.S. military is still too focused on conventional warfare."
Gian Gentile: Absolutely not.
Abu Muqawama: You have got to be kidding me. Just look at the budget and where the money is being spent. Governing is budgeting. From the limited perspective of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, I could see where Gian might be able to argue that we have embraced COIN whole-heartedly. (As well we should have, as those are counter-insurgency campaigns.) But there are two other services in the U.S. military against whom the U.S. Army and Marine Corps compete for budget share. And the Congress, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the defense contractors, the defense industry, and many within the uniformed officer corps of all services have interests in keeping the U.S. military focused on conventional warfare -- and the big, expensive, job-producing weapons systems needed to fight conventional warfare.
"Small wars are the wars of the future."
Gian Gentile: Perhaps.
Abu Muqawama: Small wars are the way of the present and, likely, the future as well. But that does not mean the threat of large-scale state-on-state wars has gone away forever. That's just ridiculous. We more or less agree here.
"The surge worked in Iraq."
Gian Gentile: Not quite.
Abu Muqawama: I agree. I think it worked operationally and perhaps strategically but failed politically. Where Gian and I disagree is when he says that we in the U.S. Army were all doing the right things as early as the fall of 2003. Please. This is simply not true. The historical record does not bear this out, and I, for one, had a rather unfortunate front-row seat to history there.
"General Petraeus is a military genius."
Gian Gentile: Time will tell.
Abu Muqawama: Indeed, it will. And I don't know if the guy is a genius. But he's very smart -- militarily and politically. And he has done wonders so far. And it's not as if the United States has been blessed in its recent history with a lot of smart, competent generals. Can anyone name three current general officers of three or four stars better than Petraeus? So maybe he deserves the praise he gets.
"The military should embrace nation-building."
Gian Gentile: If those are the orders.
Abu Muqawama: Agreed. If those are the orders. Which they may well be until we can build capacity elsewhere and fix the inter-agency.
Now here's a question: Isn't there anyone other than Gian Gentile willing to take up the anti-COIN crusade? Where is everyone else? I want to ask him that when he visits the 202 area code in the next few weeks. (We're having dinner, actually, which I am greatly looking forward to.)
Update: Gian responds in the comments section. I have work to do and thus can't participate in what promises to be a lively debate, but that shouldn't stop you.
Looking Glass: "Our pleasure at having evolved just enough to have reached into the toilet and retrieved the bauble with our newly opposable thumb as it was sailing past the trap into the sewer is striking. We should be
The current FM 3-24 approach to COIN has been presented as only one possible approach to COIN (descriptions include it being: counter-Maoist, population-centric and Galula on steroids). Being relatively new to COIN, I'm curious, what other approaches are there to COIN?
(If this
Our enemy tells us that Afghanistan is important to him. That's a good thing; it allows us
I think that this is discussion is very high minded, but what of the rifle company preparing for the GRF? This question will become a larger problem as we move forward from Iraq. Fewer units will get the call to deploy 12 months after they re-deploy. What should they focus on? That answer requires us to decide what the role of the Army will/should be in the
The United States does not have a great record of early victories in war or perhaps it is the nature of a quick victory such as was the case in Panama, Grenada, and Desert Storm that affords quick failures of the collective memories of the Nation.
The United States does not have a good record in COIN, or is it that the enemy has
Your argument carries much weight because you write with the voice of the Army’s “common man” or “foot soldier” who claims to have seen the truth and reality of things from his perspective, then extrapolates that perspective to the entire Army. The fire-brand writer Ralph Peters often uses the same type of voice in his writings. I am not putting you in the same group as
Thanks for the large credit/props above , but I did little except co-write and article w/ COL MacFarland.
Credit belongs to the leaders and soldiers of the Ready First Combat Team as a whole, who made it all happen. It was truly a team and joint effort, born of organizational learning.
MAJ Niel Smith
This is
From what I understand (which isn't all that much), the speed and decisiveness of Germany's victory over France owed much more to superb generalship on the part
You can do it in the Army, too, but you can always say you were a Marine. You see just as much (if not more) combat, and the pumps are only seven months, tops.
Do two years in the grunts, then go OCS. Even if you don't get the MOS you want, you always will have been infantry, with your CAR.<
I am glad
Where the balance exactly is, for me, is hard to say. I see where the budgets go (lots of conventional weapons), but I am finding fewer officers who can competently discuss conventional operations above the regimental (BCT for the Army) or even
I'd say that he sounds exactly like I did when I left OIF in 2006 -- and probably the way you sounded, too.
But I'm not so sure about this:
"The sheepdog mentality that drives us to become our nation's warriors is rooted in a kinetic tradition. Being a sheepdog, I have this same predilection and empathize completely with those who find COIN distasteful. "
All points I mostly agree with, Looking Glass.
I would say, however, that failures across the spectra of our capabilities aren't always simply because we don't "get COIN."
Typically amongst COIN practitioners
thanks for the thoughtful reply and elf too. Please give me a day or two to respond. Looking Glass, if you dont mind, drop me a line on my ako address I would like to continue this discussion with you offline especially with your experience in Astan.
thanks
gentile
I am sorry to hear that out in the boonies the flagpole is either up your nose, or doesn't acknowledge you even as bastard children.
SNLII - is right in the post about the strategic corporal is only that when there's a problem, and that the "topsight" technology discussed as part of RMA and in Athena's camp is being used for CYA micromanagement.
It's
Looking Glass: Essentially FM 3-24 is Galula on Steroids or viewed in a different way Trinquier Light. I have read it multiple times and closely along side Galula, Thompson, Trinquier, Kitson and the rest and it is essentially the counter-maoist approach to conducting a counterinsurgency campaign.
Yes, Sir; you are reading me correctly in that the Army makes a considerable amount of noise about COIN
(Quick correction to COL Gentile's mention of me: although I've visited Iraq a couple of times, I have never served there.)
It looks to me as if they are, to some extent, arguing past each other. The former are pointing to ongoing operations, and taking note of the fact that despite the promulgation of COIN doctrine,
This is a paradox I've discussed in some of my writings. While we as a military stress how paramount the "strategic corporal" or "captain" is
thanks for the post.
I should point out that many of the folks on this blog who participate in these discussions are either currently serving in Iraq or Astan (Tintin) comes to mind, or have served at least once or multiple times. Your quip about our discussions here of being "scholarly" has a whiff of condescension and implies a muddy-boots view of the ivory
SNLII, perhaps your most striking post was the last, wherein you described the "White Swan" as opposed to the "Black Swan," and the lack of surprise; that these were effects that were cultivated and sometimes even blocked by higher echelons
I've been a bit bothered by the narrative that's built up about Tal Afar, too. I don't blame the commander for that, but rather many pundits.
Tal Afar is unique in Iraq in that it's overwhelmingly Turkoman, not Arab or Kurd. It's a very closed society, and they easily spot intruders (and tell on them). And the Turkoman culture
Elections were a success, then the creation of a Parliment drug
Interesting reading in that shows how a BCT S2 can in fact think out of the box and drive in a non doctrinal way COIN---many of the surge BCTs made similar discoveries in other COIN areas which after their return are being lost due to the lack of similar documentation.
So, we are
And it is also important to point out the Colonel Tim Reese, Don's co-writer and battle buddy is currently deployed and is serving as a senior advisor to an ISF outfit (in Baghdad, I think). Well Done, Tim!!
Don's posts add texture to our understanding of those first couple of years. The
Too little firepower rather than too much? I wouldn't like that at all, as I think I've said before.
The question is what to do with what we have, and don't have.
(I don't think I posted that last excerpt you put up, BTW).
My current points would be:
1) I agree with G.G and others we do need to train and resource full spectrum.
2) We, the
I believe the term you're looking for is "black swan" moments, not "white swan" moments. Unless I am completely misunderstanding your meaning, you were referring to those unpredictable, large scale events that Robb and Talib (sp?) have talked about extensively?
More than that, Elf, how happy would you be if you're in a TIC and there are no tanks to send you, only a crappy UAV with a piss-poor Hellfire on it to waste against a reinforced concrete building housing way too many bandits
I would add that some units conducting operations even today in OIF are doing so in ways that would bring a broad smile to Nathan Sassaman (such as the shaping of the battlefield around Mosul). I fear that sometimes, especially in the popular press, some want to remove the "combat" from the Combat Infantryman Badge and pretend it's not a primary
Thanks for the response about CJTF-7 and the OIF1 division LOOs. Understood. What I'd like to know more about, though, is division and MNC-I planning in 2004-6...I hope there is an "On Point III" on the way.
Your point about the presence of higher-headquarters synchronizing tactical ops and directing them toward the "correct" endstate is well-taken.
In talking to LTG Sanchez and some of his planners, it is clear that Sanchez saw the campaign in 2003 as an extension of Phase III. His planners did not. Some of them tried to emphasize "PH IV" aspects of the
My sense is, in 2003-6, lots of battalions and
I’ve been reading this Blog for some time and appreciate the excellent dialogue. Since our book On Point II has been noted several times in this exchange and others, let me just add my humble thoughts about the transition that Tim Reese and I discuss and that has become a minor issue here and in other forums.
First and foremost, I think the spring of 2003 saw the
2. COIN is situational. Someone else said that three or four times.
3. Nineteen year old spec 4's generally lack the empathy to be effective in that role'.
4. Know I did, many years ago -although we had given up on COIN by then, for the most part.
5. Based on my my misbegotten experiences,
Thanks for the acknowledgment and response. And your point about a collage is valid as well.
"If the IDF had sought to commit its soldiers to do a pop-centric COIN mission, then verily they would be failing at it.
But they're not doing that because it's not in their strategic interests to do so."
Oh, it is, but that's probably not achievable. There's an old saying that 'the Palestinians have never missed a chance to miss a chance',
If we print some more funny money for State and the rest, do they promise to show up for work, and leave the enclave?
"Piss away money faster than any civilian agency you heard of.."
Not anymore. Apparently you missed the TARP II vote. Call them the Dept of Insured and Immune Racketeers.
350 billion dollars. Got questions? Go ask your mother. <
===========================
True. But it was politically
Until the day comes that State and other such agencies get vast sums of money, that ain't gonna happen. DoD can piss away more money than any civilian agency can even dream of.
-Barry
Explaining the difference from cadet on between doctrine and dogma, between theory and doing, might be a helpful small move.
Which when it comes to governing/budgeting,
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