AirSea Battle - A Strategy of Tactics?

AirSea Battle is gaining public notoriety, even as an official description is yet to exist. AirSea Battle is now part of general answers and specific questions in Congressional hearings suggesting there is some anticipation on Capitol Hill what exactly this widely touted but never officially discussed series of ideas might be.

The focus of AirSea Battle appears to be to counter the growing challenges to US military power projection in the western Pacific and Persian Gulf, although in public use AirSea Battle is now used almost exclusively in the context of China.

CSBA described AirSea Battle as A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept. The use of the term "operational" implied AirSea Battle is intended to be developed as a battle doctrine for air and sea forces. Milan Vego recently took this one step further in Proceedings and recommended AirSea Battle be developed as one of several operational concepts for littoral warfare, although I think there is room to develop AirSea Battle doctrine for joint operations in several different geographic conditions.

All we really know about AirSea Battle is that we don't know a lot more about it than we do know, so every time someone writes about AirSea Battle from a position of some authority as to what AirSea Battle actually is - it's worth noting. In the latest example, we learn a lot.

A new Armed Forces Journal article by J. Noel Williams titled Air-Sea Battle is perhaps the most important contribution to the AirSea Battle discussion to date, because it starts a valid public discussion with criticisms of AirSea Battle - criticisms that cannot be ignored or dismissed. The article should be read in total - it's worth it. Because the article is very long difficult to cover in a single blogpost, I'm going to focus on only a few specific aspects of the article that stick out to me; a few of the criticisms and the implied competing doctrines.

Criticisms of AirSea Battle

This paragraph contains a lot of room for more discussion. The author's argument is that AirSea Battle doctrine appears to be a symmetrical approach to Chinese military capabilities. It should be noted that AirSea Battle doctrine is specifically being developed as an asymmetrical approach to Chinese area and access denial capabilities.

AirLand Battle posited an asymmetric approach in relation to the Soviet Union. AirLand would attack all echelons of the Soviet force with aviation and long-range fires because NATO was badly outnumbered on the ground. In contrast, ASB is symmetrical, pitting U.S. precision strike against Chinese precision strike. Since ASB is by definition an away game, how can we build sufficient expeditionary naval and air forces to counter Chinese forces that possess a home-court advantage? Is it prudent to expect the weapon magazines of an entire industrial nation to be smaller than those of our Navy and Air Force deployed more than 3,000 miles from home? What happens when the vertical launch systems of our ships and the bomb bays of our aircraft are empty?

Logistics is going to be a challenge in any military campaign where an enemy has the capacity to strike at our lines-of-communication, so in that sense the logistics points are not really a compelling argument for me against AirSea Battle. Logistics is a challenge in any military endeavor that can be applied to any doctrine. It is fair to note logistics is a huge challenge for the US today in Afghanistan, and hardly a major challenge specific to any single theater of war. I do like the last question though, because it is a question Congress needs to be asking all the time as budget pressures force difficult choices on Navy force structure.

The bigger question here is whether AirSea Battle doctrine represents a symmetrical apprach of "pitting U.S. precision strike against Chinese precision strike." I think the authors statement represents a fair question, but I am hesitant to agree with the author that this conclusion is accurate. Any battle doctrine between the US Air Force and US Navy should build towards a precision fires regime, so I am unclear as to why that is implied a problem with AirSea Battle. Furthermore, because AirSea Battle is supposed to be a battle doctrine - a joint US Navy and USAF operational concept - the authors strategic level argument fails because it compares tactical methods as symmetrical comparisons. Just because Taliban forces and US Army forces in Afghanistan might both employ accurate, precision fires, that doesn't mean both sides are engaged in symmetrical warfare on the battlefield. How forces are used on a battlefield is often much more important to measuring the symmetrical or asymmetrical nature of combat than the weapons forces utilize on a battlefield, and I have yet to see much discussed on that aspect of AirSea Battle doctrine development.

A military confrontation with China would be the biggest national security challenge since World War II, yet ASB advocates suggest it can be handled by just two of the four services. To the outside observer, this is astonishing; to the insider skeptic, it is absurd. Many ASB advocates I have talked with or have heard speak on the subject follow the logic that we will never conduct a land war in China, therefore long-range precision strike is the only practical alternative. What is missed in this line of thinking is that there are other, more fundamental choices that also don’t require a land war in China. It would appear there is an unstated assumption by many that conflict with China must include a race across the Pacific to defend Taiwan; many war games over the past decades have solidified this point of view. Unfortunately, this assumption is outdated. Chinese capabilities now, but especially 10 years from now, simply preclude a rush to Taiwan and would require a very deliberate campaign similar to that described in the aforementioned CSBA report to gain access. Without ground forces and with limited magazine capacities, what happens once we get there? What now, lieutenant?

I have heard everything mentioned in that paragraph discussed myself in person by those who are developing AirSea Battle doctrine, and I myself found what was said by AirSea advocates both "astonishing" and "absurd." The parochial, shortsighted nature of AirSea Battle that fails to include ground forces as a capability in major war is so thoroughly shortsighted that even as a hard Navy partisan I have a hard time believing AirSea Battle doctrine development has as much support as it does. The parochial nature of the AirSea Battle discussion informs me, an observer, that AirSea Battle is nothing more than an idea to advance a political agenda for the Navy and Air Force, and by political I am speaking specifically about justification of budgetary investments.

Competing Doctrines

Army Col. Gian Gentile, writing in Infinity Journal, expresses similar concerns about the impact of optimizing the Defense Department for counterinsurgency operations — in other words, optimizing for the opposite end of the spectrum recommended by ASB. The logic of the criticism is the same, nonetheless, since optimizing forces for an uncertain future is a prescription for getting it badly wrong. Gentile argues that counterinsurgency has become a “strategy of tactics.” He explains that when nations “allow the actual doing of war — its tactics — to bury strategy or blinker strategic thinking,” it leads to disaster, such as in Nazi Germany, where the German Army’s tactical excellence in Blitzkrieg could not rescue the regime from its fundamentally flawed strategy.

It is possible that, like Blitzkrieg, the U.S. could prevail in the tactics and operational art of ASB and still suffer strategic defeat.

So what’s the rub specifically? ASB initially was conceived as a way to increase interoperability between the Air Force and Navy through increased training and improved technical interoperability. Given the overlaps in their strike capabilities, especially in aircraft, it makes perfect sense for the two most technical services to work closely to ensure interoperability. But like its progenitor, AirLand Battle, ASB has progressed to an operational concept to address a specific military problem. While AirLand Battle was conceived to counter the Soviet Union, Air-Sea Battle is billed as the answer to growing anti-access/area-denial capabilities generically, but as everyone knows, specifically China.

CSBA described AirSea Battle as "A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept," so I am unclear how ASB progressed into an operational concept when ASB was actually introduced as an operational concept. Operational concepts are what drive doctrinal development, so if a service was going to develop battle doctrine the logical starting place would be to develop an operational concept. Am I missing something here?

I agree with Col. Gian Gentile that counterinsurgency has become a "strategy of tactics," kind of. It is more accurate to say that the US military developed a population centric operational concept intended to address a specific battlefield problem in Iraq, and the operational concept drove development of counterinsurgency doctrine. That operational concept and subsequent doctrine became tactics employed by troops on the battlefield that through trial and error, led to a wealth of lessons learned on the battlefield and ultimately, a political victory by means of military power that our national leaders could live with.

What followed the successful execution of a population centric operational concept, often generically described as "COIN" although it is much more than just counterinsurgency, was an intellectual Enterprise consisting of a politically diverse group military and policy intellectuals, and it was that intellectual Enterprise (or industry) - through open source intellectual rigor and debate - that began a process of broadly articulating strategic and policy ideas and recommendations based on the experiences and lessons learned from the successfully employed battlefield tactics.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the author frames AirSea Battle as akin to being a competing doctrine to COIN, pitting a high end warfare AirSea Battle doctrine represented by the US Air Force/US Navy against a small wars COIN doctrine represented by the US Army/US Marine Corps. This competition is political, which is another way of saying it is almost entirely intended to influence budget decisions. I tend to think that would explain why US Army leaders see a future where intervention is required in small states that are more likely to be unstable as a result of the rise of regional powers; and why US Navy leaders see a future where rising regional powers leads to instability throughout the world suggesting the focus should be on deterring hostilities and maintaining escalation control between major powers.

There is not a national security policy that settles this debate, or said another way, the National Security Strategy of the United States (PDF) is so broad, generic, and ultimately useless that almost any version of the future use of military forces is accurate, and the the DoD can do just about everything and anything and meet the strategic guidance.

Which leads me back to reminding folks that since we enacted Goldwater-Nichols, the military services don't actually do strategy. The military services are responsible for the development of tactics and doctrines for forces that get pushed up to the strategic level - which is the COCOMs, who develop and execute strategies from the political policies of US civilian leaders. Because the military services are not effectively engaged in strategic development as a result of Goldwater-Nichols, and all they really develop themselves anymore is doctrine and tactics, the services attempt to leverage the doctrines they develop to influence politically up to strategy and policy. The services manage budget and tactics/doctrine, so for them it is only logical to match budget to doctrine/tactics, not budget to strategy/policy.

COIN and now AirSea Battle are representative of how doctrine becomes advocated in political form for purposes of justifying the budgets of the services. Goldwater-Nichols has built a wall that separates strategy (COCOMs) and budget (Services), and the results are that 25 years later the nation has yet to develop a coherent national security policy or strategy that meets the challenges of the 21st century.

Budgets controlled by the services get aligned with doctrine/tactics resulting in the US military being remarkably brilliant tactically but unquestionably adrift strategically. My concern is, and I think the article by J. Noel Williams suggests, that while AirSea Battle may be a smart development for the US Air Force and US Navy towards a joint battle doctrine; AirSea Battle will also be the next military operational concept forwarded as a political idea that acts as a substitute for the absence of a coherent 21st century national security policy.

You know that strategic process Secretary Panetta discusses that will guide budget decisions? We are going to look globally incompetent if that "strategy" reads like it was informed by a doctrine rather than a policy.

Tacit Knowledge and Networks

Roger Fortier has an interesting response to my review of James Russell's book:

First, I disagree with your assumption on a 'common environment'. No two units are exactly alike, have the same operational context, have as capable commanders and troops etc, even in the same area of operations. Thus, the lack of variation in the dependent variable neither proves nor disproves top down or bottom up. And paraphrasing Einstein's blackboard; not all that counts can be counted, and not all that can be counted counts. Perhaps less metrics and more tacit knowledge from the field will help illuminate this issue.

I think that this is rather my point; there's considerable variation in what we would call independent variables, which most definitely include operational context, capability of commanders and troops, and area of operations. What we don't have is variation on the dependent variable; in spite of these differences, all of the brigade teams that Russell studies seem to learn the same things at roughly the same pace. That's fine and well, and indeed ideal from a practical, operational point of view, but it doesn't necessarily support the bottom-up explanation that Russell is positing. If best COIN practice is spread by networks of officers and NCOs sharing information in formal and informal settings, you'd expect factors specific to each unit (including commander experience and capability, area of operations, etc.) to affect the learning process. But Russell doesn't present much evidence of that; his evidence, rather, is pretty consistent with a top-down explanation of the spread of best practices. It might have helped if Russell had sought out examples of units (whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or some other war) that failed to adapt to best practices, and try to figure out why.

Incidentally, I wrote my dissertation on the spread of tacit knowledge through networks of officers, which I realize is rather like saying I wrote my thesis on life experience...

Second, understanding "the precise nature through which doctrine changes" solves the wrong problem. It is a mistake to think doctrine is the anti-dote to fluid dynamics. Is it any wonder that the old cliche of 'generals fighting the last war' has such staying power. What's meaningful is an open network of information sharing and dissemination in real time where emergent, and bottom up, processes and techniques change as rapidly as an adaptable enemy. The tacit is personal and non-linear and always defies articulation.

Two thoughts. First, the development of an open network of information sharing and dissemination in real time et al isn't something that's disconnected from the top-down/bottom-up debate; I think there's a fair amount of evidence that some military organizations fail utterly at developing that kind of network, even when they're generally moving towards the right kind of response to whatever war they're fighting. One way to phrase this is that senior officers need to be comfortable with the bottom-up process of information sharing and development of "best practices;" some command environments facilitate such developments, and some don't. In that sense, command functions best when it "gets out of the way," and deserves credit for making itself absent. That's a mostly, but not entirely, bottom up account of doctrinal development during wartime.

But I don't think that's the whole story. Open networks of practice dissemination have to be aimed in the right direction, and need to have a baseline grounding. We can radically overstate the impact of FM 3-24, but we can also understate it; the work taking place in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 in terms of development and sharing of best practices was certainly informed by the general lines of thought emerging around the Counter-Insurgency manual. There are, after all, multiple strategies available to the counter-insurgent. It's not all that surprising that the techniques and best practices developed and employed in Iraq were generally consistent with the precepts of FM 3-24. This might not entirely be a top-down explanation, but it's not really bottom-up, either.

Much of the question here revolves around the role that senior command plays in institutionalizing an environment in which best practices can be developed and disseminated. There's surely an element of "get out of the way," and not just in COIN; we have the examples of German infantry and armor tactics in both wars, US submarine tactics in World War II, etc. But I think it's also important to point the organization in the right direction. It's fine and good to say "here's the job, surprise me with your ingenuity," but I think that a lot goes into how the "job" is chosen, defined, and then described to the people who are tasked with execution.

Sunday Book Review: Innovation, Transformation, and War

James Russell's Innovation, Transformation, and War tracks doctrinal innovation in the US Army prior to the Surge. Russell, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, wrote the book based on face-to-face interviews of personnel operating in Iraq between 2005 and 2007, and close attention to primary documents associated with the development of counter-insurgency on the ground in Iraq. Russell gives what is essentially a bottom up account of doctrinal innovation prior to the Surge. Networks of officers and NCOs shared information about tactics that worked across units, leading to general increase in the institutional capacity of units to conduct the Surge. Russell's work runs orthogonal to many accounts of the Surge, which focus on top-down doctrinal innovation coming from the group of officers and civilian experts closely associated with David Petraeus and FM 3-24. We read Russell as part of my Spring 2011 Counter-Insurgency course at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.

Russell's unit of analysis is the brigade combat team, and he tracks the development of certain tactics across several brigades in Anbar and Nineva. These tactics include what have come to be known as COIN best practices, including census taking, engagement with local leadership, and maintenance of presence amongst the population. Russell finds that these best practices spread through low level interaction between officers and NCOs from units participating in the fight.

But here's the problem: Good social science typically needs some variation on the dependent variable. This is to say that in order to determine what causes learning, we need some examples of units that have learned, and some examples of units that have not. Russell, as far as I can tell, gives no account of units that have failed to learn. As Russell writes:

All the units studied here demonstrated a grasp of COIN principles and sought to build organizational competencies that could be operationalized in plans and operations. Senior leaders in each of the units studied here universally recognized that the ultimate objective in their operations was to secure the support of the local population and isolate the insurgents from local support.

One reason for this may be that Russell worked closely with many soldiers and marines, and was reluctant to suggest that any particular unit had failed to learn. Identification of the researcher with the subject is a problem that invariably affects social science projects that involve face-to-face interaction. But another possibility goes to the core of Russell's argument. When I'm presented with a situation in which there is no variation across units, I'm inclined to wonder whether a unit based (that is, bottom up) explanation is really necessary. We normally focus on unit level processes (and I use "unit" in the social science sense rather than in the "brigade" sense) when we see lots of variation across units. When all of the units act similarly, social scientist are inclined to look for a common cause. In this case, it's not clear that the development of counter-insurgency was really "bottom-up" as described by Russell. If it were so, we'd probably see variation across brigades, rather than uniformity. The uniformity that Russell describes is an indicator that the units all share a common environment (potentially a top-down oriented learning environment) that focuses their learning around certain goals. Networks may function, but they function as part of a hierarchical system that supports the learning of certain tactics, rather than others.

Long story short, while Russell argues that he's presenting a bottom-up doctrinal case, it seems to me that his evidence is quite consistent with a top-down account, albeit one rich in process-oriented detail. There's a lot at stake here, and not just for counter-insurgency; whenever any military organization recognizes a need to shift course, it's crucial to understand the precise nature through which doctrine changes. The bottom-up vs. top-down distinction is one of the arguments common to the literature, along with the civilian vs. military distinction. It's not clear to me that Russell is on the side he thinks he's on.

Nevertheless, the book was extremely helpful in the context of my counter-insurgency course. On the day we read Russell, Colonel James Crider (who recently took command of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division) spoke to the class about his experiences in Iraq, and the development of counter-insurgency theory. We also read Colonel Crider's CNAS monograph on learning during the Surge, which supported Russell's argument. We also had the pleasure of Pete Mansoor, who discussed his book Brigade Commander at Sunset the week after Crider spoke. This allowed us to compare Mansoor's practices in 2003-4 with Crider's during the Surge, which was an exceptional informative exercise.

See also Frank Hoffman's review.

Colonel Gentile and Professor Layne On Our Afghan Strategy

I almost hesitate to post this, as I want to do nothing to discourage Colonel Gentile from continuing his lonely "Jihad" against the COINistas in the Army.  His arguments about the strategic emptiness of our current COIN fascination are at the heart of  the emerging Seapower/ Maritime Grand Strategy debate.

Of interest also is Christopher Layne's excellent editorial questioning the current strategy in Afghanistan, which includes this insightful closing paragraph:

"On its own terms, COIN is a problematic policy. Even more worryingly, it sets exactly the wrong grand strategic priorities for the United States. In an ironic coincidence, the same morning leading newspapers carried reports of Gen. Petraeus' remarks, another headline announced that China has overtaken Japan as the world's second largest economic power and is on track to overtake the U.S. by 2030 (indeed perhaps as soon as 2020, according to many leading experts). In the early 21st century, East Asia is becoming the world's geopolitical and economic fulcrum, and it is U.S. air and naval power that will be needed to meet the emerging challenge from China. That is where America's long-term grand strategic interests lie —- not in fighting futile Eurasian land wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq."

Bryan McGrath

Hunter-Killer Ops in the Littorals‏

The US is unlikely to have further appetite for more large scale, ground based COIN operations such as those ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan in the foreseeable future. But the threat posed by non-state actors to US interests around the world is unlikely to dissipate any time soon, either. As noted here before, some of these groups, such as the Tamil Tigers and Nigeria’s MEND have become adept at using the sea, littoral, or inshore areas to facilitate their operations. MEND guerillas have employed hit and run tactics against oil infrastructure and security forces, then retreated to the refuge of the Nigerian Delta’s expansive creeks and mangrove swamps. So it would be wise for naval planners to consider offensive counter-guerrilla operations in their portfolio of options in the event these insurgent groups rise to a level that invites a discrete US intervention in support of a host nation’s counter-insurgency efforts.

Could hunter-killer operations as described by Joseph Celeski (COL, USA, SF, Ret.) in Hunter-Killer Teams: Attacking Enemy Safe Havens be adapted for a maritime environment?

Hunter-killer operations are prolonged operations conducted in irregular warfare by a unique and specifically organized force, in conjunction with an indigenous
force, against irregular warfare adversaries by operating behind the lines or in
hostile, safe haven, or semipermissive environments, employing unorthodox
tactics, for the sole purpose of achieving attrition and punitive actions
predominantly against the personnel, leadership, and resources of the enemy.

Maritime hunter-killer operations (HKO) should work in conjunction with other offensive counter-guerrilla operations such as naval raids, interdiction of the insurgents’ supply lines, and man hunting of insurgent leadership (based from the sea). HKO are one component of a strategy of exhaustion, where the prolonged operations wear down and attrite enemy insurgents to the point of defeat. As Celeski notes, “Hunter-killer operational utility derives from employing an effective economy-of-force option, achieving persistence by operating in the same space and conditions of the enemy, while achieving a military and psychological impact out of proportion to its size (operational or strategic performance is achieved).”

A historical example of maritime HKO-like role were SEALs and their UDT predecessors who advised indigenous maritime units operating in areas such as the Rung Sat Special Zone, Laos, and Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The Naval Special Warfare community remains the obvious choice to conduct Maritime HKO today. NSW is skilled in the tools of HKO, including working with indigenous forces and using mobility platforms (boats) to access enemy held terrain. Alternatively, as Celeski suggests, teams from MARSOC could be trained in the HKO mission. MARSOC MSOTs are performing well in Western Afghanistan, but as they eventually return to their maritime roots, HKO might be a desired niche capability for selected teams.

Future maritime HKO would be supported by intelligence, over-watch, and resupply from sea-launched UAVs and other distributed fire precision fires. However, in order to achieve success, the elements of SOF tasked to prepare for maritime HKO would need to train to tactics different from those used in the generally short duration direct action missions common today. Capabilities required for HKO include longer duration patrols in insurgent held littoral environments, enhanced de-confliction measures with other naval units operating in the battle space, incorporation of influence operations, and a smaller footprint for logistical sustainment. Hunter-killer ops should be considered as a viable component of an overall COIN strategy against a maritime-centric insurgency.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

The High Water Mark of COIN?

I am increasingly dubious of landpower advocates pointing to the likelihood of COIN demands in the decades ahead as justification for resources.  There is a fundamental strategic question to be asked about any pursuit in which an adversary can drive cost ratios as efficiently as insurgents can.  This cartoon from today's Washington Post makes the point far more eloquently than I.

Bryan McGrath

Maritime Insurgents and Global Oil Disruption

While all eyes are focused on the oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, across the Atlantic, potentially more devastating spills threaten the Nigerian Delta. The MEND has resumed attacks on oil companies and is wreaking its own brand of ecological and economic warfare against the Nigerian government and the world's energy supplies. MEND's guerilla tactics against oil production include a combination of piracy and kidnapping on deepwater rigs, sabotage against coastal pipelines, and direct attacks on facilities. In 2009, 51 oil workers from Shell were kidnapped for ransom, an increase from 11 in 2008.

As can be expected in modern globalized insurgencies, additional groups with diverse motives and tactics have entered the fray against oil production in Nigeria. In the future one might expect the MEND to import additional tactics from other movements, including waterborne IEDs. And by the way, the US imports more oil from Nigeria than Saudi Arabia.

If tasked, would the US Navy be prepared to deal with this sort of problem? Are current force structure, training, and TTPs ready for a maritime-focused insurgency?

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or any of its agencies.

Government in a Box

I'm currently at the International Studies Association in New Orleans. In about an hour, I'll be sitting on a roundtable with Dan Drezner, Stephen Walt, Charli Carpenter, William Winecoff, and Joseph Nye on the topic of the influence of academic blogging on policy. In lieu of more substantive posting, here's an interesting exchange on the "government in a box" concept that has some relevance for the comments Bryan made earlier

Disputing the "Hearts and Minds" Strategy

Cross-posted at The Conservative Wahoo:

We had a nice discussion of the current operations in Afghanistan on The Conservative Wahoo Live! radio program last night, with several listeners very much espousing the "win their hearts and minds" strategy that has become part of the background noise in Washington's current fascination with counterinsurgency theory (COIN). Here is a rational, well-argued criticism of modern COIN from today's New York Times.

I was a student at the Joint Forces Staff College in the Summer of 2006, about the time the COIN cabal began their ascendancy. After a day-long symposium on the subject in which no fewer than five separate speakers parroted the "hearts and minds" line, I stood up in the Blue Bedroom (the main auditorium, so named because of its color and the propensity of the lighting/atmosphere to put students to sleep) and asked the unlucky lecturer a simple question:

"Has an insurgency ever been broken through a policy of fear, terror and murder?"

His answer was a very quick "yes", and as if to prove his credentials as a COIN expert, he named a half dozen or so. I then asked, "How come we don't study those?"

He was aghast. His answer was basically, "Because that kind of fighting is inconsistent with American values and ideals."

I then went on. "But we firebombed Japanese and German cities night after night, killing tens of thousands of civilians at time. We dropped two atomic weapons on an opponent who was obviously losing the war. Is it a question of from how far away the fear, and terror and murder is delivered? Is that the prime determinant of whether something is "consistent" with our values?"

My point is this: winning the hearts and minds of a population is a proven strategy for breaking an insurgency--because it has been proven to work. But it hasn't always worked. Shouldn't our forces then also at least discuss other methods of breaking insurgencies? Or is it the discussion of such distasteful methods that is actually inconsistent with our values and ideals, rather than the conduct?

I'm all in favor of the "hearts and minds" approach being the default, textbook US method of addressing COIN. I'm not in favor of ignoring history.

Bryan McGrath

PG School Aids in Domestic Counterinsurgency

Fascinating article here from this morning's WaPost on an effort by local authorities in Salinas, CA to combat a growing gang-violence problem using the tenets of the proliferating cottage industry of counterinsurgency. Deep in the heart of this approach are faculty and students from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), some of whom have operational experience in counterinsurgency.

A couple of things strike me about this initiative. First, I've never been a fan of the Naval Postgraduate School. Nothing personal, just a sense that it would be better for both the Navy and the society it serves if we sent those officers out into civilian universities to gain graduate degrees. I'm sorry if this opens a huge can of worms here--and I assure you, I won't be drawn any further into the argument. All that said--this is indeed an important initiative and something NPS can be justifiably proud of.

Second--this also seems like a logical application of counterinsurgency theory--which at ITS heart seems to me to contain a great many tenets of what has come to be called "community policing" or in some circles the "broken windows" approach. When I think about the problem of gang violence in America--and then think about what I know of modern counterinsurgency theory--there seems to be a good match here.

Finally, while there may be a good match HERE, I don't think there's a good match everywhere. I grow increasingly pessimistic about the success of a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, believing that the existence of a functioning civil society--at a very basic level--is the fundamental requirement for the application of COIN techniques. I question the broad existence of such a society in Afghanistan, and I believe that the Apostles of COIN are overselling the prospects for its success there.

So there you have it---one shot, two victims (NPS and COIN). Fire away.

Bryan McGrath