Problems with the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Theory, 2

Duration of Counterinsurgency Operations: FM 3-24, page 43, states: “Counterinsurgents should prepare for a long-term commitment. Insurgencies are protracted by nature.” Other references speak of counterinsurgency operations as typically lasting many years to decades. Our country has never fought a war of any type for more than a few years, even when our survival was at stake. Yet, this aspect of counterinsurgency operations should be primary before committing to future operations.

This is a good place to note that this problem and other problems that I see have more to do with our ability support and sustain such operations rather than with counterinsurgency operations theory itself.

Intelligence and language skills: Military intelligence and language skills are linked and essential. FM 3-24, page 79 says, “Counterinsurgency (COIN) is an intelligence-driven endeavor.” FM 3-24, Chapter Three, on intelligence, says nothing about the role of language in intelligence. Language support is relegated to Appendix C which introduces categories of linguists and provides methods of training and using mostly locally hired linguists.

The Iraq Study Group noted, “All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency. In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage. There are still far too few Arab language–proficient military and civilian officers in Iraq, to the detriment of the U.S. mission.”

Colleges and universities do not provide the needed skills since most of these institutions continue to concentrate on the European languages. The Army News Service reported in May of this year:

• (DLI) "We have basically doubled the size of our faculty, staff and student load, while our budget has tripled," said Warren Hoy, chief of mission support for the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. DLIFLC's budget was $77 million in 2001, while fiscal 2006's budget was $197 million.
• DLIFLC today has more than 1,500 professional language instructors and is expecting to hire another several hundred teachers in 2007. The student load has grown since 2001 and is now more than 3,500 at any given time. Linguists come from all four branches of the military, the U.S. Coast Guard and other DOD agencies, Hanagan said.
• The institute graduates more than 2,000 students per year and has degree-granting authority, whereby qualified students can receive associate degrees in foreign language.

The Army’s Careers and Jobs page advertises for Linguist/Interpreters in the following languages:

Arabic-Modern Standard

• Arabic-Gulf-Iraqi
• Arabic-Egyptian
• Arabic-Jordanian
• Arabic-Syrian
• Arabic-Lebanese
• Arabic-Yemeni
• Arabic-Sudanese
• Arabic-Maghrebi
• Arabic-Algerian
• Arabic-Libyan
• Arabic-Moroccan
• Arabic-Tunisian
• Pushtu/Pashto/Pachto
• Pushtu-Afghan
• Kurdish
• Kurdish-Behdini (Kurmanji)
• Kurdish-Sorani
• Persian-Afghan (Dari)
• Persian-Iranian (Farsi)

Note that the Iraq Study report blasted both civilian and the military linguistic deficits. The military is correcting that situation, but I’ve found nothing regarding our State Department correcting it.

Unity of Effort: This is a catch-all topic wherein the Army/Marines hope to provide some framework for managing all the military and civilian, U.S. and host nation, NGOs and IGOs, and all the other world organizations that might become involved in counterinsurgency. FM 3-24 also notes that even coordinating all these groups is problematic. But the importance of this Unity of Effort is foretold by its being the very first chapter after the introduction chapter.

Our military has little experience with such coordination, although there are other field manuals and joint procedures that deal with the issue. Relating to one successful effort, FM 3-24 provides a short summary of a conversation between Gen. Anthony Zinni, USMC, and the JCS Chairman on the Kurdish relief operations in 1991. The Chairman asked Zinni about the nature of the lines of command in Zinni’s organization chart that included the civilian relief organizations. Zinni’s reply was, “Hand Shake that’s it. No memoranda of agreement. No memoranda of understanding….”

This was a relief mission in the Kurdish areas. For more detail on Zinni’s view of Unity of Effort see his autobiography Battle Ready; Zinni, Tom Clancy, and Tony Koltz; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2004. It’s also a good read.

COIN operations moves command and control down to its lowest possible level with more decisions made at the lower unit level. Even so the military organization must still, by necessity, maintain a relatively tight chain of command that is mostly incompatible with civilian organizations. Perhaps more importantly, the military and civilian organizations have different goals that require different approaches in dealing with the citizens of the host nation. Civilian organizations often need to maintain a perception, by the locals, of being independent from military operations. This allows them to gain trust. I think it is possible that a successful military COIN operation could also instill that trust in the locals and thus make reduce the need for civilian organization to appear independent.

There is no question that even COIN operations are conducted in a physically dangerous environment – probably more dangerous than conventional operations. Civilian organizations are understandably reluctant to send their people into such danger. In those cases, the military may have to assume some or all of the civilian functions of reconstituting infrastructure and providing humanitarian assistance.

I hope I’ve given some flavor to the complexity of and, as I see it, the difficulty of actually achieving Unity of Effort. When Unity of Effort is not successful, the military must assume roles that are beyond the traditional military roles. We’ve support relief operations in such places as Somalia but our troops’ role was mostly one of security for food transportation and distribution. In Iraq, our troops have been doing everything from reconstruction to medical care to repairing infrastructure. Iraq also serves as an example of the failure of Unity of Effort, at least until late in 2006. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which in theory was responsible for coordination the civilian efforts in Iraq, is now infamous for its shear incompetence and was finally dissolved. There was almost no coordination between the CPA and CENTCOM or the Commander Multi-National Force.

While I see hope in the Army/Marines improving their language skills, I don’t see a lot of near-term hope in Unity of Effort. The military and the civilians will have to learn to trust and work with each other when our experience is usually the opposite. It will take time and experience.