Redstate

By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Most of the conversations arising from Bush's speech on Iraq last week dealt with his usage of 9/11, how we're doing, whether or not we're losing, troop withdrawal timetables, manpower, sticktuitiveness and so forth. What received little press or attention were some of his new initiatives. The following should have been bigger news:

To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps:

First, we are partnering coalition units with Iraqi units. These coalition-Iraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat.

Second, we are embedding coalition "transition teams" inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of coalition officers and noncommissioned officers who live, work and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills such as urban combat and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.

Third, we are working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We are helping them develop command and control structures. We are also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq's new leaders can more effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror.

This was something I recommended over a year ago (the first two steps, at least). I hate to bring up Vietnam when discussing Iraq because I really don't want to get into a big comparison debate, but the above tactics reflect some of the lessons learned from that lost war. American Commanders in Vietnam adopted a plan similar to the one outlined above but they failed to follow through, foregoing one of many strategies that actually produced beneficial results. From America in Vietnam by Guenter Lewy:

The unwillingness to try new approaches on the part of Westmoreland’s command was exemplified by MACV’s [Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] negative attitude to the Combined Action concept pioneered by the Marine Corps, one of the most imaginative approaches to pacification. The Combined Action program was begun in August 1965 and involved the combination of a marine rifle squad (14 men) and one navy medical corpsman–-all volunteers–-with a locally recruited Popular Forces (PF) platoon (38 men). The resulting Combined Action Platoon (CAP) became responsible for the security of a village, typically consisting of five hamlets spread out over four square kilometers and averaging 3,500 people. The marines lived with the PF platoon and, being an integral part of it and despite occasional friction, generally had an energizing effect. Tactically, the Americans gained in knowledge of the terrain, while the Vietnamese gained in firepower and firefight skills and discipline. Most importantly perhaps, the presence of the marines provided assurance to the Vietnamese soldiers and villagers that they would receive help in the moment of need. The marines did not arrive by helicopter in the morning and abandon the people to the mercy of the enemy by evening. In effect they became hostages and demonstrated by their presence that the allies were there to stay. The villagers also recognized that they had acquired a shield against the excessive use of firepower by allied forces, and after gaining confidence in the CAPs’s capacity and staying power they began to provide information on enemy movements.

By 1966 the program had grown to 57 CAPs; by the end of 1967 there were 79 CAPs, all in I CTZ [Corps Tactical Zone]. While the original goal of gaining three effective PF soldiers for one marine had not been achieved and even though no PF unit had yet been brought up to the point where the marines could withdraw–-indeed, CAP marines, per man, took 2.4 times the casualties of the PF in the CAP–-the overall results were encouraging. By July 1967, hamlets with a CAP had achieved a security score nearly twice as high as that of the average hamlet in I CTZ. Morever, despite active patrolling the CAPs had achieved their pacification successes at a cost in American casualties substantially lower than in regular infantry units. They also had demonstrated that when properly equipped and supported the Vietnamese could successfully defend their villages. "The Vietnamese," wrote an American marine, "like being part of an organization which cares, and they respond well and bravely...There are sufficient men who will fight if they know the system is competent and cares."

Despite demonstrated success, Westmoreland was unwilling to adopt the CAP program. He has since explained that he “simply had not enough numbers to put a squad of Americans in every village and hamlet; that would have been fragmenting resources and exposing them to defeat in detail.” There is some truth to this argument, but involved here also was a sharp difference of opinion over basic strategy and a rigidity of doctrine. The CAP program, in Westmoreland’s eyes, represented a static and defensive employment of forces while the traditional infantry approach was that of the aggressive pursuit and destruction of enemy forces. In the eyes of many marine commanders, on the other hand, the real enemy was in the villages. Once these had been secured, the repelling of enemy main force incursions by allied reaction forces, given their mobility and massive firepower, was not a difficult problem. Moreover, they argued, without prepositioned supplies these large enemy units could not successfully maintain their attacks and in pacified areas such caches could not easily be hidden.

As it turned out, the CAP concept was never fully put to the test.

The thick-necked, inflexible military leadership was one of the primary reasons for our downfall a quarter century ago. That, and a inability to glean the right messages from history. We already had a 1940 Small Wars Manual (which someday I will read) on the shelf just waiting to be applied. Two years ago, Max Boot wrote the following on the insurgency in the Philippines (many of those experiences were incorporated into the Small Wars Manual):

However skillful they are in the application of carrots and sticks, the manual teaches, American troops cannot win a permanent victory by themselves: "Native troops, supported by marines, are increasingly employed as early as practicable in order that these native agencies may assume their proper responsibility for restoring law and order in their own country."

American troops followed this advice with a great deal of success in combating insurgencies from the Philippines to, in more recent years, countries like El Salvador. So did the British in postwar Malaya.

Much of the doctrine applied in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century remain apt for Iraq in the 21st. The similarities are eye-opening:

The United States topples an unsavory regime in relatively brief military action, suffering a few hundred fatalities. America then finds itself having to administer a country unaccustomed to democratic self-rule. Caught unawares by an unexpectedly robust insurgency, the United States struggles to develop and implement an effective counterinsurgency strategy. The ongoing US presidential campaign serves as a catalyst to polarize public opinion, as the insurrectionists step up their offensive in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat the incumbent Republican President.

These events—from a century ago—share a number of striking parallels with the events of 2003 and 2004. The Philippine Insurrection of 1899-1902 was America’s first major combat operation of the 20th century. The American policy of rewarding support and punishing opposition in the Philippines, called "attraction and chastisement," was an effective operational strategy. By eliminating insurgent resistance, the campaign successfully set the conditions necessary for achieving the desired end-state.

There were several keys to success, but ultimately victory was dependent on "patience, dedication and a willingness to remain". Same goes here. As for the "new" Bush initiatives relating to Iraq, better late than never. But as a local pastor once said, better never late.

These are but three new steps. Bush needs to outline more of them, and the Occasional Communicator needs to step out more, to consistently communicate what is going on, to better ensure that this war is won in America's living rooms as well as the "battlefields" of Iraq. A primary difference between present-day Iraq and turn of the 20th century Philippines is that the terrorists and insurgents have better propaganda tools and an Internet that can readily spread their tripe.