The Graduate Level of Warfare

In the logistics field we often say that amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics. This week we have been training on what is referred to as "The Graduate Level of Warfare;" Counterinsurgency. If you've pain attention to the news lately you know that General David Petraeus has taken over the helm as the top U.S. General in Iraq. Petraeus was most recently at Fort Leavenworth where he oversaw the publication of the first Counterinsurgency manual written for the Army since the Vietnam Era, FM 3-24. This Manual was co-written by an Officer named LTC John Nagl.

LTC Nagl served in the first Gulf War where he realized that due to our overwhelming success against what was at the time one considered one of the most formidable Armys in the world. He realized that in the future no country would stand toe to toe with us and that the wars of the future would be fought against squad and platoon sized insurgent elements. He attended Oxford University as a Rhode's scholar and completed his PhD on counterinsurgency with a thesis titled "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife." His book was a study of counterinsurgency in Malaya (British) and Vietnam (U.S.)

Anyway, LTC Nagl came to speak to us today about Counterinsurgency and his talk was very very good. He discussed how the Army has been loathe to change or even realize that it needs to change with regard to this.

The reason counterinsurgency is so difficult is because you have to be able to do everything necessary in traditional warfare, i.e. Artillery, Close Air Support, Logistics, Patrols etc., but you also have a responsibility for public infrastructure, political legitimization, foreign internal defense etc. I encourage any of you to read through the links here and realize just how difficult this is, and consider that the British success in Malaya, considered the textbook case, took 12 years. I'm not sure what that means, for war to continue you need three things, equipment, soldiers and public will, at this point I'm pretty sure we are at best 2/3. The American public just doesn't have the stomach for much more of this, and thats fine.

A couple funny, (ironic?) vignettes from vietnam counterinsurgency:

When General Westmoreland was asked at a press conference what his plan to deal with the counterinsurgency in Vietnam was, he responed "firepower." He was quickly replaced by GEN Creighton Abrams

When General Abrams met his North Vietnam counterpart after the war he told him "you know we never lost a military engagement against you" the NV General told him "that may be true, but it is also irrelevant."

It may take a while to change an organization as big as the Army, there are alot of people who still want to line up all the tanks and fight the communists, they will soon also be irrelevant.

READ THIS, ITS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT