By Steve Hynd
It looks like luminaries such as Bob Gates and Larry Korb have figured out that counter-insurgency operations are not a panacea allowing a "Can we invade it? Yes, we can!" foreign policy.
For the first time in years, Army troops are training for "full-spectrum operations" mounting large strikes against all types of enemies, not just insurgents.
The paratroopers among the scrub oaks at Ft. Bragg didn't role-play at cajoling village elders, helping with bridge or road projects, or training local police and soldiers their main duties in Afghanistan and Iraq before returning to the North Carolina base in recent weeks.
Instead, their mission was to seize a simulated overseas airfield and kill or drive off imaginary enemy forces.
Drained by grueling hearts-and-minds efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military is refocusing on fighting and killing the enemy, not nation-building.
Writing recently in Foreign Affairs magazine, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said, "The United States is unlikely to repeat a mission on the scale of those in Afghanistan or Iraq anytime soon that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire." Instead, U.S. forces will probably be called on to help other countries' armies defend themselves, particularly against terrorist attacks but also against conventional armies.
Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of Defense who closely follows military planning, said flatly: "We aren't going to be doing counterinsurgency again. "We're not that good at it." Many units' major combat skills are rusty because of the counterinsurgency focus, Korb said.
Notice, though, that COIN still seems to have it's place as an instrument of interventionism - but only when there's something close to a legitimate local host government.
Even then, I'd argue, the US military is almost exactly the wrong instrument for the kind of intervention that really helps: building physical and economic infrastructure, advising on good governance, wooing "hearts and minds" no matter how maligned that phrase has become. The only reason the military gets used is that it has cleverly appropriated to itself, during the adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost the entire U.S. inventory of personnel, skill-sets and budgets for these kinds of things. It would be far better to create a new body, a revitalised Peace Corps, which could practise these non-kinetic elements of COIN but not at gunpoint.
We may not be good at it but it remains highly profitable.
ReplyDelete>> ...the kind of intervention that really helps: building physical and economic infrastructure, advising on good governance, wooing "hearts and minds"...
ReplyDeleteThat's what the Chinese are doing -- with apparently much greater success, and at a much lower cost, than the current US game-plan.
@ Ron: We may not be good at it but it remains highly profitable.
The difference is that China's profits come from the mineral wealth they're developing - because they have a manufacturing base which uses those minerals to create the products they sell to the whole world, while the profits accrued from the US's military interventions come from US taxpayers.
Putting aside the incredibly unlikely scenario of adequate funding, what makes you think that a Peace Corps type outfit would be any better at nation building than the US army? Don't you think they would face almost exactly the same type of pushback, in Afghanistan for example, as US troops? The reality is that no one can do nation building well apart from the nation being built.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex,
ReplyDeleteLet's not put aside the "incredibly unlikely scenario of adequate funding". All of this is already being funded via the military, with incredibly little oversight and way too much wastage. The only thing that makes it "incredibly unlikely" is the faint prospect of the DoD, the perfect budget predator, aquiescing quietly to having that funding redirected to a Peace Corps instead. Let's not forget that.
As to your main question: in Afghanistan, yes perhaps they would see just as much pushback - after all, we've already invaded there. But that hasn't been shown to be the case. There are however umpteen studies that say the actions of armed US soldiers are a large part of fuelling the Afghan insurgency. Some NGO's deliberately operate without US military security because that way they can be seen as neutral and are less likely to be attacked.
Moreover, the COIN community itself has admitted (In "Counter-insurgency for Policymakers, USG, 2008) that heading off armed intervention or invasion by judicious application of nation-building expertise before things got so bad as to need guys with guns would be the optimal way to practise COIN. Pretty much, doing the nation-buuilding to head off the creation of an insurgency that needs to be countered in the first place. In such situations, there would already be a more than marginally legitimate host government in place and the Peace Corps would be assisting that government. Using the military for such "preventative COIN", to coin a phrase, is actually counter-productive.
Regards, Steve
I really have no idea how you see this scenario playing out. Take Afghanistan as the example. At what point would you suggest we begin the "preventative COIN"? Before the invasion with the Taliban at the helm? Or after the invasion when the seeds for the insurgency have already surely been sewn?
ReplyDeleteAnd after that, it doesn't matter whether you call them "the Peace Corps", "the US Army" or "the indigenous Afghan nation-building service", if you send in foreigners that need to defend themselves with guns then they will end up facing pushback, which will require more guns and so the cycle continues. So those studies about the US soldiers would probably have the same findings as with a Peace Corps.
And putting aside Afghanistan, where can a preventative COIN be practiced that wouldn't face the same problems? Somalia? Yemen? These places will still require plenty of guns, and thus the line gets super blurred with the US Army. There you're still essentially talking about regime change (or super regime building, which is enough of a change), something the current peace corps obviously doesn't do, and so you start talking less about a peace corps, and more about a UN standing army... which wouldn't be seen as radically different to ISAF, I wager...
Hi Alex,
ReplyDeleteNo I don't see this scenario playing out in Afghanistan, Yemen or Somalia. More like Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan. But then again, by the lights of that Guide for Policymakers I mentioned earlier, Afghanistan isn't where anyone would choose to do COIN either - COIN needs a legitimate host government that can provide the bulk of security needs for nation-builders. We're doing COIN there simply as a last desperate attempt to salvage something, anything.
"These places will still require plenty of guns...you start talking less about a peace corps, and more about a UN standing army... which wouldn't be seen as radically different to ISAF, I wager."
Why will they "require" armed intervention? None of them are an existential threat to the West or ever likely to be one. Neoliberals really do need a better story than "humanitarian intervention, balls it up, temporarily paper over cracks, head for exits". That's what's happening in Afghanistan, per the London Conference, and the cracks are already showing through again in Iraq. A better story might be constructed around unarmed nation building (as much as possible), the Blue Hats (who have the advantage, most places, of not being in American uniforms), containment and self-determination.
I'm not pretending I have all the answers, just pointing out that what's being tried now is unaffordable, not working very well, has as many negative long-term consequences as containment would, if not more...
Regards, Steve
My point about guns being required was related to the need to protect a nation-building effort, not as a means of arms intervention to remove a threat. And I give more credit to insurgents than just leaving it as a matter of blue hats vs. US Army uniforms. Foreigners will be judged on their actions, not their uniforms, and interventionism (be it nation building) with guns as backup will not be taken well anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your examples is that Kenya & Morocco don't really require nation-building or institution-building by foreigners. Their institutions are *relatively* in decent shape and, corruption notwithstanding, perhaps aid is more appropriate. But in any case, I don't think institution building in these countries has anything to do with security threats or armed terrorist groups. As for Pakistan, complicated, very complicated, but I don't think the answer is foreign nation-building. There are enough NGOs in the country. What's needed there is *local* nation-building, which means good governance, which is impossible to achieve through any type of foreign-implemented COIN.
Which brings me to my final point and to your original post. We're getting further and further away from the LAT post and your original comments, which were about the appropriateness of the US Army doing COIN. I'd like to point out that that LAT post is about US military strategy, which assumes a scenario where US military intervention is needed. Assuming that you agree with the pretext of such a scenario (if you think US military intervention is never needed then there is little point discussing strategy), some interventions may require *some elements* of COIN and some elements of "full spectrum operations". I'm not a military strategist, but one thing I don't understand is why it can't be a combination of both, rather than having to be one or the other.
In any case, whether the US Army is the best outfit for COIN seems moot to me in this case. In this case, COIN is not an end goal where we discuss who would best achieve it, COIN is a strategic tool *of* the US Army. The question in my mind is whether, when and how that strategic tool should be implemented.