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How Raise Tribal Cavalry in Afghanistan
Drop your COIN manuals! Here are some more lessons we can learn from 19th-century Brits. The link to the original text is there too.
Money quote (from page 10-11):
"Now no man of ordinary sense should for an instant attempt to make any sort of comparison between Regular and Irregular Cavalry. There is no greater resemblance between them than between Macedon and Monmouth. 'Look you there is salmons in both,' but it goes no further."
There's actually an important lesson in there. Apparently involving salmons.
Seriously, can we get more flowery analogies and alliteration into modern doctrinal publications?
At all opportunities, Trower
At all opportunities, Trower advises British officers to "enter into the amusements of your men" and "be prepared to receive their visits of ceremony."
I though that was the British Navy.....:)
Wow, that is really just
Wow, that is really just insipid and deeply unserious.
New Major AQC Video focuses
New Major AQC Video focuses on "AFPAK"
The "salmons in both"
The "salmons in both" comment is a reference to Henry V, where a Welsh captain in Henry's army tries to make a ridiculous analogy comparing Henry and Alexander the Great.
I've found it interesting,
I've found it interesting, just a pain to read. Fortunately google actually lets you download this one.
I thought it was very
I thought it was very interesting, though I have no idea if it's relevant to anything. The author's casual racial taxonomy would not cut it these days.
Humza Kamzi got the allusion
Humza Kamzi got the allusion correct - although 'apples and oranges' would've made the point more simply.
I'm wondering what folks around here think of the 'Company Kill' piece in the latest New Yorker, on COL Michael Dane Steele. Money quote: "The debate over Steele's leadership touches on larger questions...about the kind of force that is necessary to fight an insurgency."
I'm particularly interested in COL Gentile's take on the article. At one point, it notes that "Steele designed his training regimen to counter a trend within the Army which he believed was deeply misguided." To wit, he was concerned that "infantrymen entered combat without honed fighting abilities," since they had been dulled by peacekeeping. He trained his troops for kinetic operations. So is Steele the victim of COINdinistas, a simple, old-fashioned soldier crucified for bucking the dominant paradigm? An emblem of all that went went wrong? I'd love to offer a third option, but the man doesn't seem to invite equivocal opinions.
The part of me that is a
The part of me that is a historian just died a little bit.
@ Cynic. I find it hard to
@ Cynic. I find it hard to believe that either one of them could honestly declare that one's combat capabilities would be dulled by peace keeping operations. Despite the name, those operations can be anything but peaceful. Besides that, military officers throughout history have resisted successful trends or new technology simply because it did not fit into their world view. One of the more egregious examples may be of the oft-mentioned Vietnam era U.S officer that declared he would not change his ways simply to win the war. If the most common wars of the future are ones that require soldiers better suited for peace keeping than kinetic operations, then train soldiers for peace keeping. The military kept its culture of kinetic operations throughout the entire American experience in Vietnam, and all the nation got for it was a constant and sometimes absurd fear that our next military venture would be the same.
About the only thing this
About the only thing this document is good for is understanding Flashman novels, especially Flashman and the Great Game.
@Cynic - Is there someway to
@Cynic -
Is there someway to get that article for free? The link you provide is behind a paywall. I've got a copy in the office, but I'll have to wait until Monday. Thanks for pointing it out, regardless.
I just got back from England
I just got back from England where I gave a couple of talks so I have been off the net for a few days.
I have not read the New Yorker piece yet on Steele though I will this weekend.
But from other earlier articles that I have read about these events, well, to be blunt, I thought the gimmick in a coin fight of giving out daggers for kills was just plain stupid. Maybe on Starship Troopers where there are plenty of evil bugs in large numbers, but in a coin fight like Iraq that is a recipe for disaster. Plus for whatever it is worth, it would not be my style anyway. I always preferred good doses of humility especially in commanders with very measured injections of swagger when needed.
I am more interested in strategy and the exploration of alternatives to population centric coin. An alternative, though, is to not do stupid and immoral things in war, nor to do things as my critics suggest like scorched earth campaigns and slaughtering civilians to get at the insurgents. These are just silly straw men that they love to set up.
But there are alternatives to pop centric coin that involve more limited and precise military options; and strategy must start to take these alternatives into consideration. If not we will be crusading our way across an existential set of pop centric coin objectives that are great grand children will be seizing.
Gian- Thanks for that
Gian-
Thanks for that response. But let me ask you, if I might, to be a little more precise.
The article itself focuses on the most controversial aspects of Steele's deployment. But it also seems to suggest that his BCT, on the whole, performed in exemplary fashion by most conventional measures. It was aggressive in the pursuit of kinetic operations, and while I haven't seen comparative statistics, seems to have recorded more than its share of enemy KIAs. At the same time, it recorded a rate of escalation-of-force incidents well below the median. And it lost half as many soldiers as the unit that preceded it, and half as many as the brigade that followed. So, with a few glaring exceptions, you have a unit that's using force discriminately, aggressively, and in a manner that doesn't excessively expose its troops.
But there's no suggestion in the article, from Steele or from anyone else, that overall levels of insurgent activity declined during his stay in the region. That civilian casualties were down (or, for that matter, up - they seem not to have been closely tracked at all). That infrastructure improved.
I'm well aware that you're not a supporter of Steele or his methods - your own distinguished record in OIF proclaims as much. But in Steele, we have a soldier who seems to be pursuing kinetic counterinsurgency methods to their logical conclusion. So what I'm asking is, where did he go wrong? Was it simply a question of rhetoric? Of specific tactical or strategic decisions?
The COINdinistas, I think, are suggesting that Steele was fighting the wrong war. That he was focused on killing his enemies and protecting his troops, instead of upon winning the larger war by restoring security. That seems, in light of the article, like a reasonable critique. No?
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