Robert Farley is optimistic and wrong in his argument that the US adapting a formal strategic emphasis on COIN will decrease the number of stupid wars that we get involved in. Here is his argument:
Along these lines, I think it's important to push back on a particular line of COIN critique:In addition, the doctrine of counterinsurgency virtually assures long-running military campaigns in other hot spots, even as we're engaged in combat and rebuilding operations in Afghanistan. "We're going to be involved in this type of activity in a number of countries for the next 15 to 20 years," said Lt. Gen. David Barno, a COIN advocate who served as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
I'm pretty skeptical of this line of thinking, and I'd like to see that quote in full context; I'm not convinced that Barno is making the point that Dreyfuss wants him to make. There's no question that COIN can be a critical part of the imperial project; indeed, for really successful territorial imperialism in the modern age a COIN oriented military would be absolutely necessary. The roots of COIN clearly lie in the age of empire. However, I think that warnings about how the adoption of a successful COIN doctrine and orientation will lead to additional counter-insurgency campaigns is fundamentally wrong-headed, for two reasons. First, the United States didn't need capable COIN to become involved in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. A conventional military doctrine did nothing to prevent any of these wars, and there's no indication that it would do so in the future....
Winning quickly and leaving, however, is something that COIN advocates can never promise. The way of fighting that COIN proponents advocate doesn't lead to the sort of war that American hawks like, or that is very palatable to the American public. The kind of war that COIN advocates want is the kind of war that the US is least likely to engage in if the COIN faction becomes dominant. In the American political context, an appreciation of the costs of COIN means fewer wars, not more.
This is a seductive argument that is wrong on two counts. The first is the domestic political dynamic makes it much easier for hawks to propose and implement policy than it is for doves. The thumb is on the scale for invasions to defend people from themselves for their own good and then tangentially for US national interests (our motives, as always, are pure.) COIN doctrine as the dominant Pentagon faction makes the dove argument against long term chaos, which was trotted out for Iraq, a politically weaker document as invasion proponents can say "We can handle it, as we have in Iraq and Afghanistan (let's ignore the strategic failures of the Surge and the lack of clear political goals in Afghanistan that are not mutually contradicted by other strategic goals and the basic societal matrix... and let's ignore ethnic cleansing and the weakening of the post-Westphalian state while we are at it too....)
Secondly, and more importantly, let us assume that the COIN bureaucrat proponents completely win their fight with the conventional forces and conventional threat factions in the Pentagon --- does that mean the US will retire all heavy armored and mechanized infantry units? No, it may mean a few more heavy brigades are shifted to a Stryker configuration or moved to the National Guard. Will the Air Force get rid of the F-15C/F-22 air superiority capability? No, they may decrease it to buy more drones. Will this mean the US Navy gives up nuclear attack subs? No, they'll just relabel the program office and argue that fast attack subs protect us from seaborne insurgents that we are seeing in Afghanistan[/snark].
The US military has put a massive amount of intellectual muscle and funding behind the concept of full-spectrum dominance: means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.
COIN advocates in charge most likely means an "add-on" to capabability or de minimas a marginal reshifting of force structure for the next fifteen to twenty years; the heavy invasion and counter-attack forces will still be in the US inventory and still on active duty in significant numbers. So as long as full-spectrum dominance is the US doctrine of choice and we collectively get our panties in a bunch at states that wish they could spend 1% of our annual defense budget on their militaries, COIN does not decrease the chance of future interventions; it instead probably increases the chance of future interventions and invasions as it is a "solution" that is "proven to work" as long as not too many questions are raised about either what "working" means or the initial rosy scenario assumptions that are made to sell the invasion.
argue that fast attack subs protect us from seaborne insurgents that we are seeing in Afghanistan
ReplyDeleteBit of a stretch that, but maybe you meant Somalia/Yemen?
Add to your above arguments that hawks never advocate for starting COIN wars, even if most unbiased observers can predict the wars they do advocate degenerated into such conflicts quite rapidly. They always argue that, this time, they�ll follow the Powell Doctrine, that it�s always a quick little bombing campaign or swift regime change followed by flowers and cake and renaming squares in honour of the manly men who started the fighting. Of course, since they always set maximal goals for their conflicts, the Powell Doctrine never applies, but once the war is started, extricating from it is a real bitch.
BJ --- the Afghanistan need for submarines was tongue firmly in cheek --- I'll add the snark tag there :)
ReplyDeleteI think Farley is right on the first part. Advocating COIN, or even a CT approach, will do little to change the path of the US in the future. So I'm with him in rejecting the idea that a full scale adoption of COIN within our military (and subsequently within the civilian apparatus) will have much of an effect on the amount of wars we start or the path of our foreign policy. COIN will likely continue to act as an after the fact justification for our continued presence in wars once all other rhetorical spinning has failed as I believe you were trying to point out however, but I doubt it will act as a stepping stone for us enterting into any more conflicts than we already do. Most justifications for entering into conflicts in this country are routinely grounded in two rhetorical arenas. The first is obvious, the "national security" card. The other is what I like to call "divine hubris" that is typically formulated by civilian politicians, not military personel. (I define "divine hubris" as a rhetorical extension of manifest destiny, with the person engaging in it essentially arguing that we as a nation are meant to "bring freedom and prosperity to people around the world" through whatever means necessary). The "divine hubris" rhetoric may not always be the key fixture politicians use to trumpet a war or conflict (as was the case for Iraq where National security was the MAIN, although not only, focus) but it's almost always there in one form or another.
ReplyDeleteFarley however, should have said that COIN advocates can't promise "winning" at all, let alone a quick victory. Just as a conventional appraoch can't promise "winning" either. Counterinsurgency is, like any other doctrine being proposed, a theory that one can apply to a myriad of different historical situations that may or may not (depending on the spin being used) validate the theory's utility and can be applied to current situations, as in Iraq, for sheer political expediency without an inkling of thought. Of course, the problem with using history as a guide in situations like these is that no two situations are exactly alike and the one arguing the superiority of their doctrine has to engage in more than just a little bit of assumption making to make their case. And the problem with applying COIN to something recent like Iraq, and arguing it was the COIN approach that really won the day and thus we must use it in Afghanistan or else risk failure, is that this ignores a whole slew of variables and tactics used that are manifestly not part of any COIN doctrine I'm aware of (Our encouragement of some "soft" ethnic cleansing in Iraq being just one very large example) and thus gives people the false assumption that COIN in its entirety is valid even though the military very obviously used methods outside of the traditional COIN approach to aid them.