COIN of the Realm; “Security” in Iraq

This reader appreciates and understands the commentator, Leigh. It is refreshing to find a writer that is willing to pause; to admit uncertainty, wanting to find distance, a time-out, from the debate on Iraq. Her expressed uncertainty, a sign of good mental health. John Updike said of the War of my youth; “…How could anyone not be at least equivocal about an action so costly, so cruel in its details, so indecisive in its results?...”

As onlookers, and onlookers we are, each of us witness to unbridled debate and dislocation among our traditional leadership; the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence community, the ‘Generals’, current and retired, et al; each even divided within. As spectators to so much rancor and debate, we are drawn daily between what is right, and what is expedient; as well witness to suffering and violence, twenty-four-seven, broadcast and print.

There is the hint of the poet in Leigh’s sentiment; W.H. Auden wrote; “…Teach the free men how to praise…”. Thinking he was telling each of us, perhaps Leigh, in his elegy: writer, improve us, be less judgmental, and search for the facts, the truth. Know too that a postponement, a time-out from giving opinion, is a “…good thing…”. We are all uncertain, we all live with doubt. It proves to this reader that the writer has that best of qualities; humility. Perhaps, standing back, to pause, allows for a state of lucidity, leading perhaps, to a better understanding.

What perplexes this reader, listener is the epiphanic quality of today’s ‘editorial’ information; so voluminous. Each commentator, speaker, reporter, lecturing us about what went wrong; their rhetoric focusing on their views regarding: insurgency, counterinsurgency, and asymmetrical warfare. Each article and broadcast having a tone of discovery, an epiphany, their discovery of important current day overlooked nuances.

The latest darling, a savior [and he may be] embraced by the media; General Petraeus, the reported ‘author’ of a new military bible: Counterinsurgency Warfare [COIN]. His latest offering, a 242 page on COIN; how to defeat an insurgency, how to win hearts and minds of the people.

Astounding. For centuries, for a millennium or two, men have battled for two reasons; power and, revenge. Military men, politicians, scholars have been studying the phenomenon and reporting on its evolution.

Iraq in 2003-2007, is NOT Vietnam, but, the principles of War are the principles of War. They begin with a commitment to battle; to bring the battle with violence; anything less, is imbecilic; second; secure the land, the villages, the countryside, and the city streets; third rebuild governance infrastructure; fourth, control communications, theirs and yours; fifth, secure the intelligence, knowing that once the battle is joined, the intelligence candle is going to burn at both ends; i.e., the enemy knows what you are thinking, and often the information that you are receiving from ‘allies’ is bogus.

The essence; 'security' IS the COIN-of-the-Realm in counterinsurgency; any insurgency, or guerilla warfare.

Counterinsurgency Warfare was closely studied and its strategies and tactics implemented in Vietnam; i.e., the battle - for hearts and minds of the Vietnamese citizen -joined by American warriors, predicated on the principles stated.

Today's challenge; WIN the hearts and minds of the locals [Iraqi people], as well, the American people, and, the American fighting man. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, the implementation, the embracing of this seminal principle of War was delayed in its application. The streets of America were lost circa 1968; the condition eerily the same in 2007. The rub; the enemy has only to defeat one of our three efforts; and, it is the American people they will come for first; 'protraction' our Achilles Heel.

Leigh’s follow-up interviews or witness gained gives additional credence to this perspective; “…support of the people…”; “…General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency documents…”; “…we may be setting up Petraeus to fail…”; et al.

This observer has listened and read such commentary for the duration of the Iraq II War; the daily take on the War by uninformed commentators, usually colored, exaggerated, or wrong; and, each perspective given to audiences that have not sufficient background to separate fact from fiction.

In Vietnam the lament after the War; “…we did not seek the senior Asian experts of the time…”; nonsense. They were lining the walls, and roaming the halls of our institutions. The choice then, and apparently – not certain - today, was NOT to listen.

I have read General Petraeus’ COIN manual, all 242 pages [received it in DRAFT form]. Nothing new. Of ample note, is a quote on page 105:

“…The two best guides, which can not be readily reduced to statistics or processed through a computer, are the improvement in intelligence voluntarily given by the population and a decrease in insurgents’ recruiting rate. Much can be learned merely from the faces of the population in villages that are subject to clear-and-hold operations, if they are visited at regular intervals. Faces which are at first resigned and apathetic, or even sullen, six months later are full of cheerful welcoming smiles. The people know who is winning…”

The author, Sir Robert Thompson, circa 1961.

Thompson acted as an advisor to the United States efforts in Vietnam [British Advisory Mission]. He served as a close advisor to JFK 1962-1963; giving birth to the “Strategic Hamlets Initiative”; a measure to [secure] the land and villages, to give the population safe [haven] from the War raging everywhere. He later again served, circa 1969, in the Nixon administration as an advisor on our ‘pacification’ efforts.

His advice to both Presidents Kennedy and Nixon: “The War will be won by brains on foot”.

The American military establishment did not accept his premise; instead, we fought the battles, on land, and in the air, in every village and town, with too little regard for securing the landscape, creating a haven for the people. The hunting and killing of the enemy was the primary concern. "Body-Count" was General Westmoreland's strategy; regardless of venue. What IRONY; "Protraction" was General Giap's counter strategy.

It is ridiculous, intellectually bankrupt, to proffer that we have just discovered the art of counterinsurgency warfare. Thompson, and others, dating back to the Romans, through the Burma Campaign in WW II, has written chapter and verse on COIN warfare. As a student 1963-1967, this antediluvian warrior studied Thompson and other’s works, on counterinsurgency, guerilla warfare, and asymmetrical warfare. All the study, in naive preparation for my service; two tours in Vietnam as a counterinsurgency advisor. There is little in today's noise that surprises this observer; other than the hubris of the civilian policy makers, and the clarion posturing of the Pentagon [active and retired] for credit, and no blame.

The primary dysfunction in Vietnam was the competition between military entities in-country; each of the services conducting their own ‘…nice little war…’ [times two when you consider Vietnamese counterparts]. Thinking that on close inspection, one may discover less than optimal coordination ‘in-country’ and inside the Beltway in the conduct of this War.

Finally, I noted in General Patraeus’s COIN Epistle; the annotated bibliography. It is extensive and the contributions laudable; boasting many qualified authors. Bing West’s, “The Village” the closest rendering to my heart and experience. As well, this reader perused most of the other referenced volumes listed; the effort expended over the last forty years, an effort to discover: why couldn’t we have been better?

I am left to wonder … why then, in today’s myriad media, is there an epiphanic tone, a certainty, a discovery tone, to today’s written and spoken commentary?

Frankly, today’s commentary, the ‘revelations’ regarding COIN warfare, are merely old chapters revisited, reworked copy of timeless writings and testimony of warriors and scholars from different Wars, from a not so dissimilar time-and-place.

Perhaps in the “Classics” section of his bibliography General Patraeus should have listed [possibly not yet read] “Rabble In Arms”; a young man’s Bible for War. The author's [Kenneth Roberts] very first sentence is perhaps one, even a primary, reason that young men go to War; and,sadly, why they do not listen to the Sir Robert Thompson’s through History:

“…It was Cap Huff who said that no business or profession, not even the managing of a distillery, can provide the profusion of delights to be encountered in a good war…”

Young men have been lured to War by literature and the poets for centuries. When they go to War; should they come home, to the man, each would respond to Cap Huff: “...I have not found it so...”

Uncertain, and young-once; east of the Rockies
OUT