Category — Military Strategy

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita – The Predictionieer’s Game:

Conversely, the notion that the developments that make up history are primarily a series of chance events seems equally odd to me. Why fight over ideas, select governments, build armies, fund research, promote literacy, create art, or write histories if all we are doing is twiddling our thumbs while chance developments sund us bouncing around like the physicist’s particles? How can anyone deny strategic behavior and its consequences when we are surrounded by it in almost everything we do?

To be sure, the world as we know it could have swung one way or the other. That’s why neither the past nor the future follows an inevitable path. There are always chance elemnts behind which ways things, but those cahnce events rarely decide the future.

I’ve been reading a LOT about how to increase learning speed in startups and how to shorten feedback cycles to quickly see what is working and what isn’t and to then iterate on that. Because of this I found the following bit about decision/feedback loops in the military from Free Range International extremely interesting:

“According to Boyd, decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage. Frans Osinga argues that Boyd’s own views on the OODA loop are much deeper, richer, and more comprehensive than the common interpretation of the ‘rapid OODA loop’ idea”

That rapid feedback loops are important in many areas makes perfect sense but I really liked how if you replace “opponent” in the paragraph above with “customer” you get a basic version of rapid learning for startups – except that you’re trying to make something they want instead of killing them. There’s a lot of other processes and approaches startups can learn from other fields.

After my initial (somewhat hastily written) piece on the Surge and the followup I wanted to present some thoughts from someone who was actually on the ground in Iraq before and after the Surge. Lieutenant Colonel Dale Kuehl has a paper in Small Wars Journal that you should read in full but I will present his key points here and then delve into the case of a certain Abu Abed (summary is quoted from the article):

• The factors that led to the drop in violence are extremely complex. It is an oversimplification to say that the surge itself led to the drop in violence. However, on the other hand it is a gross oversimplification that it was a result of paying off Sunni militia.
• The surge in troops was invaluable to help us defeat al-Qaeda and stop the advance of JAM in northwest Baghdad.
• The surge was only as good as the operational design that went along with it. The change in focus from transitioning security to the Iraqi Security Forces to protecting the populace was also a major part of the success last year.
• While units before us were conducting COIN operations we did make fundamental changes in how we conducted COIN based upon the change in operational design. These included changes in tactics at the patrol level, but probably more important a concerted effort at battalion and brigade levels to increase our engagements with the populace and leadership within the communities. Some of these changes we implemented early, some we made as we adapted to the changing situation.

One particularly interesting point is the initial goal of the battalion in training the Iraqi army instead of directly focusing on the security situation:

When we arrived in Iraq in October 2006, the focus of the operational concept was transition to the Iraqi Security Forces. Gen Casey briefed us at the COIN Academy in Taji that we would be transitioning the lead for security in Baghdad to the ISF by summer 2007 while our forces would provide tactical overwatch over these security forces. [...]

We soon shifted our focus from transition to protecting the populace. While I am sure units were doing what they could to protect the populace, the focus upon our arrival was on transition. [...] By [doing this] we made a distinct change in our understanding of the center of gravity of this fight. With this understanding we came to one quick conclusion: we were doing a poor job in protecting the populace. The shift in focus led to a subsequent shift in our tactics, techniques and procedures that placed greater emphasis on getting into the community and engaging the populace to a greater degree at all levels.

Additionally, a big part of the success of the Surge was gaining the support of Sunni groups that had previously been fighting together with al-Qaeda and I think that understanding how exactly this was accomplished is important. Kuehl spends some time discussing this and its implications:

As for why Abu Abed and his men came forward when they did…I don’t know for sure, but do have some thoughts based upon my conversations with him and community leaders. First, these guys did not just spontaneously erupt. I believe there was a group of people who were willing to work with us against al-Qaeda, a minority against the cause of the AQI led insurgency. This minority was getting organized and looking for an opportunity. Among this minority were the imams that Col Gentile introduced me to. Not all were on board at first. I think this group was looking for the right time

A story in the Guardian from last year gives a more in-depth account of Abu Abed in his group, agreeing with their reasons for joining the US efforts but cautioning of the dangers of giving so much power to these warlords that might come back to haunt the US and Iraq military later down the line.

Finally, while there are many important lessons in the paper I wanted to point out one that everyone can relate to but that is also difficult to write about. As someone unaffected by this violence it is very easy for me to say this but I have incredible respect for those who can do the right thing when faced with this circumstance. Violence breeds violence: when we are attacked by someone it is easy to lash out and blame everyone in their group/country/religion/etc. but in a situation like Iraq a carefully measured and targeted response will not only help to make sure that the right people will be found and brought to justice but also that future killing will be prevented:

During this time we also put in a COP in northwest Ameriyah. While putting in this outpost a deep buried IED exploded killing an entire Bradley crew of six Soldiers and one interpreter. I believe that our response to this catastrophic event was also one of the reasons the Sons of Iraq came forward when they did. One of the imams told me later that the whole neighborhood expected us to tear the place apart after this event. We had been going through a tough month with six other Soldiers killed in the previous two weeks. The restraint and discipline of our Soldiers was noted and cited by the locals themselves as one of the reasons they chose to work with us.

I found a very interesting paper on the future of US military (ground) power by Thomas Donnelly in the Small Wars Journal through Tom Barnett’s blog. Like all SWJ papers it is relatively short (3-5 pages) and it’s well worth reading (one interesting bit: The US Military as a fighting force for use abroad didn’t really exist until WW1, before that it was more tasked with protecting people in the frontiers, etc.). What I found particularly interesting though was the following analysis of the role of the military in fighting ‘extremism’ and/or ‘terrorism’ (of some forms). The idea that groups like Hezbollah are turning into small “privatized” armies and how to countervail them is very interesting:

Even less persuasive is the idea that, because military power is not the only requirement for success, that we won’t need sufficient military power. Or that, because the enemy won’t mass forces the way the Soviets used to, that there won’t be significant “battles.” We’re not fighting a condition called “extremism,” we’re fighting a series of quite distinct enemies motivated by an extremist ideology and a vicious version of a faith that does not much distinguish between the personal and political, a backwards-looking travesty of Islam that not only elevates God’s law above man’s law but in fact finds the vary notion of man-made law to be illegitimate and blasphemous. Thus, Clausewitz still rules: these wars are politics by other means.

Consider the case of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon (read either the brief section on the 2006 war with Israel in Ground Truth or, for a more thorough and recent analysis, The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare by Steve Biddle and Jeffrey Friedman). The organizations are wrongly described as “non-state actors;” they are proto-states, or mini-states, but they are clearly entities that evince state-like behavior. And as they become moreso, their military behavior will become more conventional. We had better start counting and understanding Hezbollah-style “brigades.” The true answer to the irregular-verus-conventional argument is “both.”

One of my strongest convictions is that proper security (and probably foreign) policy should be driven by pragmatism, not ideology. This is one of many reasons I am very happy with Robert Gates, the current US Secretary of Defense. Here are some excerpts from a speech he gave at Oxford (via Tom Barnett).

In short, I believe the statesman would be well advised to listen, in contrast to the Roman emperors whose man in the chariot whispered “sic transit Gloria mundi” – all glory is fleeting – to listen to those who simply whisper, “Sir, we’re not sure what the hell is going on here.” 

Today, we face a set of global security challenges that may be unprecedented in complexity and scope – presenting dilemmas that do not lend themselves to a simple choice between popular conceptions of Churchill and Chamberlain.

The period following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War unleashed old ethnic, religious, and nationalist hatreds and rivalries that had been largely buried since the Great War: The ethnic and religious slaughter in the Balkans; Russia’s seeming return to Czarist habits and aspirations; the fault lines between Sunni and Shia in Iraq and across the Middle East. The cast of characters sounds disturbingly familiar even at a century’s remove.

And after talking about more threats and problems:

Still, even given the jaded disposition of an old spy, there are ample grounds for optimism. First and foremost is the extraordinary growth of political and economic freedom around the world since I last served in government 15 years ago. 

But to secure these remarkable gains, and protect our most vital interests and aspirations in this global environment, the next American administration, working with our allies and partners, will need to employ a pragmatic blend of resolve and restraint to deal with the threats that confront us.

With the ongoing election there has been a lot of talk about the Surge in Iraq, mostly in the “They didn’t think the surge would work, bastards!” kind of way. I think that few people would look at Iraq today compared to Iraq 3 years ago and say that things have not improved. I think that very few people out there understand why and I think that understanding the reasons why the surge was successful is going to be extremely important in planning future military action. This has been something I have been interested in for a while and I’ll try to start writing more about this on this blog without veering into politics (which I like to avoid here).

I remember listening to experts around the time the idea of the surge first started circulating who mostly thought that it wouldn’t work due to a lack in sufficient number of new troops. If you compare the pre-surge numbers to the post-surge numbers (which I have to admit I don’t know exactly) you will see that the percentage difference is really not that great, mostly because more troops were simply not available. I think that everyone at the time already agreed that the proper way to go into Iraq (ignoring the question of whether that was a good idea) would have been with a number of troops comparable to what we had then to make sure that non of the instability started in the first place. AT the time of the surge it seemed difficult to fathom how a small increase in troops would be able to stop the insurgency that was then in full force.

I think this relatively small increase is crucial to understanding the actual process: most people think the surge simply meant ‘more troops’ and everything else happened magically. From my current understanding it was quite the opposite: a serious of new approaches that required more people to work but also meant changing the behavior of the troops that were already on the ground. David Petraeus’ counter insurgency manual gave the first indication of how one should deal with the problem and Tom Barnett points out two key reasons for its success:

The surge works for two key reasons, both of which couldn’t have been exploited to the point of solidification without additional bodies: 1) all Iraqis were tired of conflict and were looking for a way out: 2) the “awakening” due to al Qaeda’s over-reach. Fair enough.

Barnett then goes on to point out the lack of a ‘diplomatic surge’ on the political side to further help slow the insurgency and help American lives that I think points to a larger issue with US security policy:

I agreed with the logic of more troops (my SysAdmin-bias allowed me no other opinion). My problem with the surge was the lack of the diplomatic counterpart, now bequeathed to the next president, because I felt the lack of one meant—again—too many American lives needlessly lost and whatever gains we achieved logically held hostage to their neighbors and their willingness to wait us out and start trouble once we inevitably had to draw down, possibly making this whole success a complete illusion and thus wasting more American lives to no good end (not to mention those we waste in the future). 

The United States is fortunate to have an extremely capable military (with many brilliant leaders) that when faced with a new challenge/threat in the field is able to adapt to it and overcome it. David Petraeus deserves all the praise possible for fixing the military’s approach to Iraq, like many in the military he has done an exceptional job of taking a difficult situation and improving it. I think that US military commanders are generally very pragmatic once they are on their ground and troops lives are at stakes: they want to protect their soldiers and make their mission a success instead of worrying about particular ideological approaches. The real problem is what assignments and situations the military is given by its civilian leaders.

I’ve been reading Tom Barnett’s blog since seeing his talk at PopTech last year. He is a military geostrategist and his blog links to a large variety of excellent articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. with brief commentary and is currently one of my main ways of discovering interesting articles. Barnett is a big believer in the US military’s need to transform itself to be better adapted towards small wars and ’sysadmin work’ instead of the current (changing) focus on large wars with other global powers (e.g. Russia and China). I find the following comment to a McClatchy article on the need for big war capabilities the best explanation for why the US doesn’t need to worry too much about the big war capabilities of ground forces:

Here is the missing piece to this argument: America can impose its big-war willpower nicely with air power and air power alone. If we’re not going to own the aftermath, then we can just bomb, bomb, bomb and not care about what comes next. I can do that with air assets from Navy and Air Force. If I’m not going to put my ground forces at risk in small wars, why the hell would I put them at maximal risk in big ones?
[...]
If we are going to fight high-end, then it’ll be missiles and drones and high-altitude bombers and guided this and that. It will not be the Marines storming some beach en masse, nor Normandy with the Army. In short, we can have our SysAdmin green force and use it too, while maintaining an appropriate lead in the blue Leviathan force.

After reading Squandered Victory, Larry Diamond’s excellent book about his experience as an advisor to the CPA during the early days after the invasion I’ve found the topic of how American’s can work together effectively with the Iraqi administration very interesting. The book both strongly condemns many of the planning and strategic mistakes that were made both before (much discussed) and after the invasion (less well known) but also shows the efforts of people on the ground who are trying to bootstrap democracy in an unfamiliar and increasingly hostile environment. I recently found a great (and very short) article in the Small Wars Journal with advice to new Advisors in Iraq and wanted to link it here (click on the Apture link to read the Document).

Many of the lessons are relevant to working with any foreign government, especially the first one:

Since my first time in Iraq, in 2005, one essential fact on the ground has completely changed. While Coalition troops are still the most powerful fighting force in the country, the Coalition is no longer in control. The Iraqi Government is now exercising its sovereignty, and does not wish to be dictated to. This attitude filters down to the lowest levels and will color your interaction with Iraqis. You will only be able to perform your role as an advisor if you accept this fact and work with it. You are there to offer help, not to dictate, and your advice should be offered subtly and without appearing to be a demand.