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Schizophrenic War Take 2

By Denizens on November 26, 2007 | | Comments (3)

In Schizophrenic War on Sunday, I talked about reading two books on the war in Iraq and the different views of the war each presented. "Waging Peace" was about civil affairs in a war zone and Buzzel's "My War" is basically an infantryman's shooting war. The apparent inability to reconcile these two seemingly opposite views of "war" during an insurgency (global and localized) apparently paralyzed (and still does) our political, philosophical and strategic thinking.

Case in point. Sanchez's speech on the Democrat weekly address stirred up a conversation at Small Wars. Most commentors thought that Sanchez was basically trying to shun responsibility for the failure to identify and properly fight the insurgency. Two defended him. One basically stating that Sanchez was simply following orders of the infamous Rumsfeld and would have been fired if he tried to do counter-insurgency which he would have implemented "if only". Another claiming that the discontent with his statements was politically motivated.

(continued in flash traffic)

1) Just by Sanchez's statements on the Democrat address, it seems clear that he is a "'Powell Doctrine', post Viet Nam, we don't do counter-insurgency and nation building" kind of guy. Which I believe was reflected in his guidance of over all strategy and force posture. Something that afflicted his predecessors and many current commanders.

2) Attempts to absolve Sanchez of responsibility seem to damn with feint praise. He is seen at once as some sort of weak willed victim and a total butt-kisser as either unable to or unwilling to stand up to Rummy, Bush and Halib...er Rove, Cheney consortium. A complete political operative in fact. Which makes his Democrat address all that much more suspect if we believe this to be true rather than number one: he simply wasn't prepared to fight, by philosophy or strategy, a counter-insurgency. Neither was Abizaid, apparently.

In regards to the schizophrenic nature of the war, I am always interested in the idea that such generals have little or no authority or power to influence or control their area of operations. Or, that any of these generals were were not sending information up the chain of command that was being used in any decision making or public information besides information and orders flowing down.

In this war, while continuously stating that the war would only end with a political solution in Iraq, the domestic politics of the United States has succeeded in taking the blame off of any military commanders. Giving them full immunity and allowing them to return as political partisans.

Is it possible that, insurgencies being as they are and intelligence being the name of the game, we simply weren't in the right place or well organized to obtain and ascertain the nature of the insurgency? Or, were we gathering plenty of information, but weren't willing or able to decipher its true value and act on it based on either doctrine or political will?

The entire situation seems rather partisan. Not just politically, but doctrinally. The doctrine which seems to have split the military leadership into two camps: conventional war and counter-insurgency. With Petraeus being called back to help select the next round of BGs, it may be at least a nod to, if not "counter-insurgency", at least "un-conventional".

Will the military be able to take the promotion of "un-conventional" officers who might promote Petraeus' "unconventional" selection of leaders regardless of rank and not fall into disarray? Or, will it make officers sit up and stop relying on "the way things are" to get a promotion? Will this actually make the military more "flexible" or simply entrench the old guard who will hope this entire "unfortunate" period of transformation will pass away sooner or later and they can get back to planning a war with China or Russia?

And, wow, imagine with purchasing and procurement are going to look like while these two camps go to logger heads.

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3 Comments

By Heartless Libertarian on November 26, 2007 9:30 AM
Even if Sanchez had pushed for a COIN strategy early on, and the troops to implement it, he would have faced resistance from his immediate superior, GEN Franks, at CENTCOM. Or does nobody else remember Franks quashing the ground commanders' requests (under guidance from Rumsfeld) for more forces for ANACONDA in Afghanistan the year before? This after Rumsfeld quashed Shinseki's request for an invasion force of 250k troops.
 
By fdcol63 on November 26, 2007 10:12 AM
Doctrine ... Conventional or counter-insurgency? In the aftermath of our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, and when we consider whether or not Rumsfeldian "transformation" should be further pursued, I think we need to keep a few things in perspective: 1) Instead of a military focused on a large-scale European-style conflict, we do indeed need a more mobile, rapidly deployable force capable of being projected to whereever we need it, with whatever organizational elements necessary to be self-sustaining. The reorg to a brigade and RCT based force, as opposed to a division-centric force, is a good start - along with continued integration of SOCOM and joint operations. 2) However, we've learned that we still need a force large enough to adequately hold the ground we seize, without allowing the enemy a chance to come in behind us and establish an insurgency. Funding and recruitment will remain a challenge, and we must not fall into the Rumsfeldian trap of believing that "technology" without adequate manpower will be a panacea. We've found the same to be true for intelligence gathering and analysis, also. And while smaller, regional conflicts will probably be the new norm, we must also still plan for larger, more massive campaigns against potential adversaries like Russia and China. 3) While we sought to rebuild Iraq in this case, this may not be true in other situations. While we may on occasion find it necessary to follow Powell's "Pottery Barn" rule, there may be scenarios where we are not obligated or feel it strategically necessary to rebuild the civil infrastructure or other institutions and security systems of our vanquished enemy. In Iraq, we sought to change the dynamics of the Muslim world in a key, strategic center, from which we hoped a pro-democracy movement would spread as we saw in the early days in Lebanon and elsewhere, thereby hoping to encourage the Iranians to overthrow the mullahs and avoid a larger, messier war there. If we must move into Iran, we may hope to do so with as few civilian casualties and collateral damage as possible, but in any case, the Iranian people will most likely turn against us. In this scenario, I'm not sure we will find it necessary to fix what we broke, except to the extent necessary to prevent Iran from becoming a Talibanesque haven for terrorists and other Islamist enemies. So, while we sent Public & Civil Affairs teams into Iraq, will this always be necesssary, and would we need to incorporate these elements and efforts into whatever "standard" doctrine ensues? Conventional OR counter-insurgency? No. We must plan for BOTH as much as funding and personnel capabilities permit.
 
By kat-missouri on November 26, 2007 12:00 PM
Even if Sanchez had pushed for a COIN strategy early on, and the troops to implement it, he would have faced resistance from his immediate superior, GEN Franks, at CENTCOM.
Good question, but I think we are talking about Sanchez at CENTCOM. Franks was gone. What did Sanchez do with his year?
And while smaller, regional conflicts will probably be the new norm, we must also still plan for larger, more massive campaigns against potential adversaries like Russia and China
I'd agree, but it seems that, at least from the outside, there is still a serious struggle within the DoD and the military over whether they should plan for both or have to do both at all. And, it goes up and down the ranks. After reading several books this weekend on the war, you can see the split. There are officers who do both shooting and fixing, but there are a large number of officers who appear to be "name takers and a55-kickers". and that is all they want to be. maybe because their MOS is typically that, but MOS didn't matter in Iraq. They were all nation builders.