Time to reevaluate counterinsurgency
West Point professor Col. Gian P. Gentile writes that it is “time for the deconstruction” of the Army’s Counterinsurgency manual. I agree.
Col. Gentile writes (emphasis mine):
Concepts such as population security, nationbuilding, and living among the people to win their hearts and minds were first injected into the Army with the publication of the vaunted Field Manual (FM) 3–24, Counterinsurgency, in December 2006. Unfortunately, the Army was so busy fighting two wars that the new doctrine was written and implemented and came to dominate how the Army thinks about war without a serious professional and public debate over its efficacy, practicality, and utility.
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It is time for the Army to debate FM 3–24 critically, in a wide and open forum. The notion that it was debated sufficiently during the months leading up to its publication is a chimera. Unfortunately, the dialogue within defense circles about counterinsurgency and the Army’s new way of war is stale and reflects thinking that is well over 40 years old. In short, our Army has been steamrollered by a counterinsurgency doctrine that was developed by Western military officers to deal with insurgencies and national wars of independence from the mountains of northern Algeria in the 1950s to the swamps of Indochina in the 1960s. The simple truth is that we have bought into a doctrine for countering insurgencies that did not work in the past, as proven by history, and whose efficacy and utility remain highly problematic today. Yet prominent members of the Army and the defense expert community seem to be mired in this out-of-date doctrine.
Col. Gentile has more in “Freeing the Army from the Counterinsurgency Straightjacket.”
Both the field and the institutional Army have gained much experience over these past 4 years in actually fighting two major COIN campaigns. Should we not consider that experience and integrate it into a revised doctrine for counterinsurgency? The German army in World War I went through major doctrinal introspection and then change after only 2 years of combat on the Western Front. It drew on a vast amount of combat experience (often from the lower ranks of the army), codified that experience into an operational doctrine, trained on it, and then put it into practice against the enemy.
Why is our military still carrying on as if there isn’t anything wrong? If counterinsurgency is as great as its proponents portray, it should be able to withstand the debate that Gentile calls for. Either way, our nation must do whatever it takes to win. We have the best troops and equipment in the world. We just need a strategy that will work, and after four years, it seems obvious to this author that counterinsurgency does not.
You’re absolutely right, Bob. And I would add that Iraq is a lot more chaotic than they would have us believe. I refer back to Sun Tzu – in his lesson with the concubines, he teaches that if an order is understood and not followed, it is the fault of the subordinate. But if the order is not understood, it is the fault of the officer.
Thanks for your service.
I could not agree with Col. Gentile more. Other then Iraq, please name the war(s) that have been won by this doctrine. I can not recall one. I am not even sure what the ROE are? I’ve seen several different versions and the reason always seems to be that “commanders further down the chain of command have modified them”.
I spent about 30 months flying helicopters in Vietnam, mostly gunships. We had ROE’s on a card that was given out to everyone. We also used our common sense to figure out when firing back might be counter productive. This is a much better trained and equipped military then the one I served in. Perhaps a better dissemination of the philosophy of C.O.I.N. down the chain and trusting in the good judgement and basic humanity of the American soldier would work better then any written rules.