Really, I am not sure I can affect an entire zeitgeist. Instead, I will be sufficiently content to adjust the perspective on counterinsurgency (COIN) a bit (1), and offer a means to begin describing its grand objectives, terms, costs, requirements, etc., as simply as those used for conventional warfare. You are surprised that I am more concerned about the zeitgeist bit, and not what you might be thinking about the first part. I would be foolish not to expect a raised eyebrow or more over that one and so it does not concern me. In fact, I will enjoy imagining these first impressions. Besides, you would be disappointed if I did not fully exercise my titling license. 

It should be obvious that the COIN’dinista zeitgeist is taking a beating over the recent turn of events in Afghanistan. Born in the chaos which emerged tentatively and then spread like wildfire across the fracturing regions that was Iraq in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, the newest iteration of counter-insurgency theory had all the markings of a favourite son striding onto the world stage to earn a place in destiny sustaining the “surge to victory” in 2007/08. Despite claiming intellectual (and tactical) victory in COIN and extolling the virtues of the COIN’dinista Wise Men, we seem to be down the rabbit hole again in Afghanistan. To be honest, I’m not even sure if the conflict there is an insurgency. It may well be a civil war. Perhaps no foreign intervention can eliminate it – perhaps foreign intervention is the cause. That would be tragic-comic, to say the least. No matter the outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan an understanding the fundamentals of insurgency and counter-insurgency deserves to be worked out, particularly as Western countries and their military forces will continue to get caught up in insurgencies elsewhere. Let’s not lie to ourselves, such operations will continue. Insurgencies sparked by regime collapse, natural disasters, and resource shortages will all continue to demand the attention of multi-lateral forces, especially in key locales or for key objectives. For example, I suspect the clock is ticking on “Back to Somalia II: The Pirates of Mogadishu,” as the costs and disruptions to the shipping industry and critical resources is becoming too great. Because the root of the piracy issue is the dislocation at the center as factions struggle for control, any foreign intervention would rely to a degree upon COIN expertise. This, then, is an exploration of a particular view of COIN that might be of use to a foreign force in such contingencies.

I have always wanted to argue for a radical review of the assumptions regarding use of force requirements, and was inspired by the topic of a talk put on recently in the department, a critique of the use of happiness as a metric (ugh) for progress in counter-insurgency activities. For the record, I hate this term. It makes me utterly despondent that military affairs have been so quantified that a new and rarefied term for “measurement” was necessary.

To attempt to measure the happiness of a population as a means to tally tactical, operational, or strategic progress in COIN operations? I clearly understand the near impossibility of doing that with any usable reliability. But happiness as an objective to orient COIN doctrines and practices at all levels (policy, strategy, operations and tactics) away from force and towards something else suggests itself as a plausible answer to the riddle of this form of warfare. 

So, I wanted to know what the speaker thought of this perspective, as she had spent a fair bit of intellectual energy coming to grips with the terms of happiness in the context of COIN. I do not care what makes for more effective COIN, it is imperialist and should not be done, even if done well, was the response my inquiry earned. (2)

I was not happy. I am a military historian. I am not interested in political interpretations of current events, and I am neither recommending nor making policy. My purpose was to understand what makes for effective COIN practices to provide a means to interrogate events in my capacity as a historian. I take the world as given and try to explain why things have happened as they have, set the context, narrate events, and examine and analyze the outcomes. If I am to be any good at this I must be able to set aside my personal opinions and interrogate a subject rigorously.

Nevertheless, I was quite intrigued by the conceptualization of the objective in COIN to be the happiness of the people. And I think I can offer my own reasoned response in support of this idea. The historical record on the topic – from the insurgent, partisan, and “terrorist” as well as the COIN’dinistas’ perspectives – in addition to the general run of the military strategic and tactical treatises and studies on the subject suggests that where the people are the object their happiness matters. First, and yes, before defeating the insurgents. Always.

While other views on COIN nod to the Hearts and Minds mandate, most cannot fully commit to stepping away from the kinetic fight and still urge, recommend, and require the use of a good deal of force. It seems to me that this is because the focus is too often to counter the insurgent rather than the insurgency. The former orients the COIN forces to fighting and defeating the insurgent military as the means to succeed. To take the latter as one’s focus offers different perspectives and approaches. Most importantly, as I see it, making the insurgency the objective requires consideration of its causes (which must lead to political, economic, and social reform) as well as the temper and inclination of the people. This is the starting point, that it is the insurgency, not the insurgent, that must be countered and this inevitably includes limiting force and a consideration of the people. (3)

It is not easy to create a frame of reference for a Western military mind of war that makes quite clear that while strength and resolution are required, the profligate use of force is not a good option. Hence the rather stark coupling of babies and insurgencies to characterize this view. Yes, it’s unconventional, but that seems entirely appropriate to the topic.  Nevertheless, the comparability is impressive given the perspective of COIN I wish to create. (4) Consider:

You don’t win by physically crushing the baby. Even though you can. And sometimes really think you want to – sort of. It’s that brief moment of insanity, in which we are all mostly lucky for not acting on the idea. Furthermore, the baby can hurt you to its heart’s content, with glorious impunity.

In short, this makes clear that COIN victory cannot come at the point of a bayonet and you must be willing to accept that the insurgent – and sometimes even the civilians – will cause casualties. Force does not serve the ends of COIN in the contemporary political-strategic environment. “Collateral damage” is a euphemism for feeding an insurgency. Furthermore, as the conflict’s roots tend to be in political, economic, or societal issues, the population will necessarily be involved. Thus, these conflicts tend to take place within an environment in which the local civilians are at best ambivalent towards the established authority, and it may even be the case that they support the agenda of the insurgents. In conventional warfare, this would make them collaborators. Not so in COIN. But if you are fighting around them with great frequency or intensity they will not only suffer the incidental effects, but their actions and attitudes could make the come to look like the enemy. This creates too great an opportunity for confusion and frustration for the COIN forces. Even where loyalties are legitimately questionable aggressive action towards civilians does not aid COIN – in any way. As events in South Vietnam a half century ago and Afghanistan in recent months demonstrate, the natural problems of COIN are exacerbated by active and offensive combat operations. The rigors and confusion of COIN can lead to terrible outcomes where the COIN operator is not prepared to accept this context and serve the people unconditionally.

Moreover, this restraint is a key requirement for Western armies deployed abroad given the proliferation of communications’ media and platforms. If you are a foreign COIN operator you should probably leave the bulk of the fight to the locals. To the extent that you exercise a mentoring role, you should probably counsel arrest, light treatment, and as many amnesties as possible. Does that risk sending a few bad apples back into the general population? Yes, but you limit the downside of alienating further those who might not have really been committed insurgents. This “train a local to fish” approach was the brilliance of William Corson’s original concept for the Combined Action Platoons in Vietnam. He knew instinctively that there was a limit to what the Marines could do for the Vietnamese and that his real mandate was to work the Marines out of a job. (5)

Above all else, for the baby you will die. Same for the civilians, the people whom you are committed to serve in a COIN environment. (6)

Sgt. Weichel was right. I feel nothing more than the most sincere sympathy for his family, friends, and comrades. But his inclinations and actions were exactly correct. Were such ideals the standard that defined COIN in the US armed forces, for example, events in OEF/OIF might have followed different trajectories. And were we to train and indoctrinate personnel to see the people caught up in these conflicts humanely it would become easier and more transparent to see our own forces in the same way, thus minimizing the chances for men and women in uniform to ever become so troubled as it appears Sgt. Bales did and yet still be deployed. (7)

This vision of counter-insurgency codifies the sanctity of the civilian and looks to eschew force wherever possible. Not to make the military forces softer or because I want people to think I’m nice (I’m not), but because THIS is the only way to render the costs of COIN for Western armed forces abroad accurately. From the most selfish perspective the costs, in time, treasure, and the blood of our sons and daughters, are all far greater than the position on the warfare spectrum leads people to assume. COIN is not soft warfare. It is, in fact, peltingly difficult. These characteristics arise out of the necessary exercise of restraint in the use of force on the one hand and the willingness to die – to sacrifice – for one’s protectees on the other.

Of course, my interpretation and analysis could be wrong. Probably not entirely wrong, though - there is enough to the point that it would interest me to see a discussion that took the issue of the use of force in COIN and interrogated all of the assumptions and objectives with vigor. At the very least it seems to me that the past ten years suggests the wisdom of such a review.

Endnotes

1. I was counselled that COIN was passé. Perhaps this is true for the flash in the pan pop-scholarship commentarists. The Abu-pundits will resurrect themselves anew with the next big idea – I’m waiting for a Boydling. (A free drink to anyone who gets that reference.) But I’m a historian, what do I care of fads?

2. There is the matter of ‘complicity’ – that is, that one’s ideas might be hijacked and used, or rather abused for ends or arguments you never intended and might in fact protest. I understand how this might be a concern, but the truth is we can neither know nor control how our intellectual work product will be interpreted and applied once we put it out there. Little remembered any longer, but Alfred Thayer Mahan was viewed dimly by Americans in the aftermath of WWI for having taught the Germans naval strategy. A book about Long Island, NY, written in the 1930s notes with glee that the Captain had learned the truth of sea power when his home was damaged by the hurricane of 1938. (William Oliver Stevens, Discovering Long Island, Dodd, Mead & Co. (1939).)

3. You will think me quite infatuated with Hearts and Minds in COIN. I will go further than that to say that as concerns war generally, where the people are valuable to the political and strategic objectives, then they – their needs, preferences, desires – must be factored into the decision-making. When the people no longer matter in war I will set my sights elsewhere, but until then, I remain focused.

4. Who puts babies and insurgencies together? What do you expect from a military historian made recurrent single parent by the fortunes of war?

5. Corson wrote his own book on Vietnam and his efforts at COIN in The Betrayal, (New York, W.W. Norton & Co.); see also Michael Peterson’s history, The Combine Action Platoons: The US Marines Other War in Vietnam, (New York: Praeger, 1989)]

6. As I originally conceived this concept, I had a rather cheeky PowerPoint presentation in mind for the points. For the first rule, a picture of a parent throttling a baby, in a circle with a line through it. That sort of thing. When I imagined how to train for the mission: Photo of a ranker, NCO, or officer, in full combat gear holding an infant — if he can keep the baby happy and safe for a month on his own he’ll have an idea of what will be demanded of him in a counter-insurgency conflict. A scary prospect I am certain, and perhaps some might prefer the clarity of storming a fortified position. Other rules: Everybody loves the baby. Highlights the point that the insurgent is often ahead in the PR campaign, whereas the side with the preponderance of power usually finds itself coming up short on this front. If Van Creveld is correct, the obviously stronger side is _always_ going to have a PR problem. What worked yesterday may not work today, and today’s victories could be tomorrow’s tragedies, the corollary of which is where you solve one problem but create another. Build a school in one village and you risk offending the denizens of a neighbouring village. Insurgencies usually involve complex issues that will destroy any vain hope that the path to success will be straight forward or simple.)

7. It is for the opposite but similar reasons that I deplore any form of torture or harsh treatment for prisoners – to have our people behave in such a way is an act of brutality – unwarranted – done to them.

A wise man once said ‘Remember it’s just a blog. Have fun’. In the light of these sage words, I give you the parody saga of Generalissimo Grice versus the Mouse Insurgents.

My wife and I recently moved into a new territory (rented a new flat). Like many occupying powers, we decided to take over the location because of its geostrategic advantages (it’s near the local high street and has good transportation links), its natural resources (a dishwasher, washer-dryer and a large fridge freezer), its relatively tranquil surroundings (a nice quiet residential street) and territorial considerations (it’s slightly bigger than our old apartment).

However, after the initial turmoil and subsequent euphoria of occupation (moving in), we came across the first symptoms of something worrying: insurgents in the mist (we found mouse droppings under the fridge and a few other places).

Like many occupation forces, our first reaction was denial. We  convinced ourselves that the symptoms were exaggerated (that the droppings were old), that the threat was inconsequential (just one or two mice) and that any resistance would quickly expire (our very presence would drive the mice away). We repaired the damage (vacuumed up the droppings) and set about the other tasks of governance (studying, working, paying bills, etc).

But the problem didn’t go away. In fact, it became worse. Noticing our lax approach, the mouse insurgents grew bolder and began to sally out from their strongholds (holes in the walls) on guerrilla raids (dashes across the living room floor late at night). Other evidence of insurgent activity increased (the droppings reappeared), and gradually we realised were in for a fight.

In response to the threat, we first consulted with our North American support base (our Canadian landlady), and then embarked upon a series of counterinsurgent campaigns, also known as: Generalissimo Grice’s five anti-mouse bandit encirclement campaigns:

The first campaign involved an attempt to physically prevent the insurgents from infiltrating into our territory and to coop them up within their hideouts. Without resources, so the plan read, the insurgents would be starved and forced to either surrender or perish. We erected walls and barb wire fences around potential strongholds (stuck a bunch of steel wool into the holes in the walls) and restricted access to open food sources (vacuumed up any and all crumbs after each meal).

Alas, the number of potential hiding places vastly outnumbered the quantity of resources available (too many holes, not enough steel wool; too many meals, not enough vacuuming willpower), and we weren’t entirely convinced that the defences we had erected were effective anyway (my wife remains convinced that they were pushing the wool out of the way or simply climbing over it). When it became clear that the campaign had failed to have a measurable impact (we had further mouse sightings), we decided to embark upon a second campaign.

For the second campaign, we took the fight into the very outskirts of the mouse rebel heartland and placed false sympathisers within the area, each of whom was tasked with infiltrating and killing the enemy (we put a bunch of poison into areas where we had found droppings).

Once again, however, this undertaking failed. We had underestimated the strength of the enemy’s organisational structure and intelligence network. They were able to detect and ignore the agents (didn’t seem to eat the poison, despite its supposedly wheaty smell and grainy goodness). Insurgent activity remained high (yet further sightings), and we decided on a different approach.

The third campaign represented an escalation of the strategies employed during the first. We deployed heavy artillery (high pitched noisemaking devices that only mice can hear) along the outskirts of the insurgent borderlands and used this to try to drive them out of their holes and either destroy them entirely (force them out of the building) or at least make them flee to another country (go and bother some people in another flat in our semi-detached building).

This too failed to make a clear difference. Our resources were limited and artillery is expensive (anywhere between £25 and £40 pound for a decent quality noisemaker and they only really cover one room each) It was also unclear whether the artillery used was actually impacting on the movements of the insurgents at all; foreign reports suggest that insurgents can operate under such conditions relatively unhindered (some Amazon.co.uk reviews suggest that mice may just run past noisemakers). Fresh evidence of insurgent activity continued to appear, and a new campaign decided upon accordingly.

Campaign number four represented a change in approach. Up until now we had tried to fight using precision tools, without success. Now it was decided to go with more aggressive approaches, including building armed block houses, laying mines and preparing ambushes (setting mouse traps). We piloted both violent and violent methods, but found the more humane options to be more expensive (£0.99 for a standard mouse trap, around £10 for a humane one) and less effective in design (they set themselves off constantly and seemed less appealing for a mouse).

However, insufficient resources were used (we purchased just six mouse traps in total) and negligible impact achieved. On review, we noticed that some of the new methods seemed to contradict the older ones still in place (placing the traps in the kitchen seemed pointless when that was the same room which had the most steel wool and the noisemaker in it) and that some of our intelligence was wrong (apparently mice don’t like cheese, but prefer peanut butter or chocolate paste). Learning from our mistakes, we prepared yet again for a new campaign.

The fifth and final campaign (so far), involved a massive effort to root out and destroy the mouse insurgents. Significant amounts of resources were invested (I purchased a further 26 mouse traps) and efforts were taken to adopt the latest counterinsurgent ruses from abroad (we copied this YouTube video of an American building a bucket trap). Efforts were synchronised to avoid internal contradictions (we removed the steel wool from trap heavy locations and switched off the noisemaker) and lines of blockhouses, mines and ambushes were set across all of the major insurgent border areas (all of the mouse traps were laid, now with peanut butter and chocolate paste baits). This time, we vowed, there would be no respite, only victory.

The results are hard to discern. We have yet to catch a single mouse insurgent, a sad truth that has permeated our entire counterinsurgent endeavour. However, there have been no further raids and no other symptoms of insurgent activity (no more sightings or droppings). We know that our immediate neighbour (the flat downstairs) has had success in using capitalist running dogs within their territory (their dogs have caught several mice in their garden) and wonder if perhaps these were the same mouse insurgents that we had fought against. Similarly, we conjecture about whether some of the methods used in our initial campaigns may have gradually worn the enemy down and had a belated impact (e.g. they ate the poison and eventually died away from our flat).

We are now facing a period of internal disagreement. One side of the government (my wife) remains convinced that the mouse insurgents are still present, merely biding their time, growing in strength while we become complacent. On the other side (me), there is a growing belief that the mouse problem has been resolved and that by focusing in on an expired threat impairs our ability to rebuild our territory for the future.

Who is right? Time will tell. If hostilities flair up again, it will feed fire to my fear that Formosa/Taiwan may be represented in this analogy by our attic. If the comparison plays out in full, I may end up writing the remainder of my PhD while perched up there with a laptop. Here’s hoping for a more successful outcome!

I hope you will forgive me for the somewhat whimsical tale (inspired perhaps by too much reading about Chiang Kai-shek and his war against the Chinese Communists on my part perhaps) – definitely not a post to be taken too seriously!

This week’s furor about Peter Cruddas, co-treasurer of the Conservative Party, offering the opportunity to suggest policies in exchange for cash is unlikely to die down for quite some time.

But I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a moment and propose a (possibly slightly far fetched) counterpoint: why shouldn’t we let parties accept policy suggestions in exchange for donations?

We live in a democracy, in which politicans secure power through means of a popular vote, a vote which depends on the government’s ability to deliver what the people want. If they deliver it, they stay in place. If they don’t, they get voted out.

Let’s imagine for a minute an alternate history in the Cruddas Saga, in which three imaginary things had occured:
1. The newspaper representatives had genuinely been potential donors.
2. That Peter Cruddas did indeed have the power to arrange donor input into Tory policy committees.
3. That the donors had signed up and then provided an idea to the policy committees to consider.

If the idea put forward  had been discriminatory, partisan or simply self-serving, then the Tory party would have been nuts to pick it up: their existence in power relies on winning elections, and to do that you need popular support. Advancing an unpopular policy is a sure way to lose support. If however, in a fit of madness, the Tories had decided to accept the bad idea and run with it, then the system’s safety net would have kicked into gear - the policy would have reduced their popularity and decreased their chances of being re-elected. Alternatively, if the idea had been a good or selfless one that resonated with the people, then fine - the people’s will would still have been served (and we got the good advice for free no less!).

Of course, the obvious rebuttal is to argue that the added money provided by political donors would allow a party to mask or gloss its actions through publicity and – dare I say it - propaganda. But this represents an overly pessimistic view. Positive marketing can only go so far – if I’m waiting on a station for a train and it’s running late, it doesn’t matter how many adverts the rail provider plays about their high quality services, I’m still stuck fuming on a station and I’m going to be hacked off.

For those who aren’t yet convinced, consider this – America pumped billions of dollars into supporting Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist regime in China between 1945 and 1949. But no matter how much money they spent, they were never able to persuade the Chinese public that the regime was not corrupt; that inflation was not rife; that the party was not going to lose the war; and that generally the country was going in the right direction. Money given directly to a ruling party does not guarantee popularity amongst its people.

The model that scares me more is the one where donors offer money directly to the public in exchange for votes (“Vote for my candidate, and I’ll build your community an ice rink. Vote for the other candidate and you’ll get nothing”).

We saw an international relations versus of this in the 2000 when the West offered up the Serbian people a deal: Vote Slobodan Milosevic out and we’ll lift our economic sanctions. Vote him in again, and we’ll keep on squeezing you until the pips squeak. The Serbs promptly voted Milosevic out (okay, there were other reasons too – but the economic…’incentive’…certainly helped!).

So, no, I’m not really afraid of donors being allowed to suggest ideas to party policy committees in exchange for money – any party that follows a policy of accepting and running with ideas that fail to serve the wider country will quickly find themselves voted out of power. The very institution of democracy protects us.

I’ll start worrying instead when the donors turn their attention to us and start offering us cash or other incentives in exchange for our votes directly.

Historians have a bit of a problem with titles. Usually there’s some editor to rein them in, but in this medium I am unfettered. I will endeavour not to abuse my liberty and where I fail I hope at least to entertain.

It is a rather odd and disparate collection of items to tackle in a single post. And I can hear the very first comment from every reader: “why isn’t it 2/3ds?” Not only will I link the three, but I can promise that my maths are intentional and necessary.

In brief, two key themes unite these three on their path to historical wisdom. The first is that seemingly insignificant, quotidian matters of military history, warfare and combat experience can actually convey much that is important. Such evidences, even when irreverent, can yield wisdom. But they are not the details usually of concern to the historian – at least not much beyond their charm as an anecdote for colour and texture.  The second is that people matter. Their ingenuity, and its value to war, cannot be replicated by technology or doctrine or diktat.

The wisdom found and discussed in this piece arises out of minor anecdotes specifically dealing with relatively insignificant matters historically. I shall not only rescue these from obscurity, but also send out a relief call on behalf of those which languish still. The title worked best in its order, but for the discussion here the sequence of the narrative will put Happiness at the end.

Limeade on Guadalcanal. This is certainly an unlikely pairing. It is in fact their juxtaposition that makes the story quite so memorable at first and ultimately so very important. War is hell and combat is crushing and within this crucible the smallest human efforts can have tremendous effect. Nowhere has this ever been truer than on Guadalcanal in the early days of that WWII campaign, when the Marines struggled mightily and fought daily to maintain their control and use of Henderson Field, a critical aviation node for the current and future campaigns in the Pacific Theatre. In the heat and horrors of that battle the story of how some Marines took care of their brothers in arms is retold, with great pathos, in a December 1944 US Naval Institute Proceedings article.  [1]

“Limeade on Guadalcanal”

The first time I read the article I was stunned. The drama of the narrative is tremendous.  Describing the struggle for control of the airfield and the island as a “faithful latter-day reproduction of the labours of hell,” the author portrays the Marines who fought for it as “exhausted and wretched, forsaken and unconquerable.” And on one of those terrible days, in the midst of fierce combat, a few of Marines made limeade for their comrades. It was such a small relief and act of kindness by any other measure except for that which rules in war. [2] In fact, the author apologizes for writing about what must seem like a silly thing. However, he stands his ground to retell this story, confident that “it had its share in the final victory over the…Japanese that in each of the three dimension of war against the beleaguered Marines.” That the limeade was objectively bad also particularly matters because it is in spite of this quality that the Marines enjoyed the treat, like the sweetest ambrosiac elixir, and drew strength from it as well as the caring actions of those who had made it. The author’s conclusion sets the anecdote within its proper context of importance: “The day…that limeade was made for the first time on Guadalcanal will be among those items of war that the world will little note nor long remember. But to those men who worked and fought and flew there, it will always be an act of heroic imagination.”

Although the author’s emotional response to the event is clear, the article offers nothing more than a narrative of the event itself, an official memorial to an important tale bound for obscurity only for its scope. Seemingly irrelevant, and obscured from the probing view of scholarly review, I would argue, in fact, that the surface insignificance defines its importance. The anecdote is the sort which perfectly embodies Lord Wavell’s advice to Liddell-Hart to study the daily things – of war, combat, and the soldier’s experience – as the most profitable path to historical scholarship. This, the experience from his military career taught him, was the superior means to understand war and its component parts could. In combat, small things, acts of “heroic imagination,” have incalculable effect upon the course of events.

Rule of 4/6ths. You’re wondering about the fraction. Why it remains unreduced will become clear, abundantly so. The Rule of 4/6ths is my contribution to the pantheon of universal, immutable, and unavoidable laws of warfare, belonging to stand with FOG and FRICTION. [3]

The rule states that in war, on the battlefield, you will only ever get “4/6ths” of what you need. The art of war, the key to success, is to find the means to make up for the deficit. [4]

Such a lofty principle has both epic and irreverent origins in the seemingly insignificant travails of life in combat, specifically that which was encountered during the Chosin Campaign of the Korean War. Interviewing Marines who had arrived safely at Hungnam, Marguerite Higgins elicited a poignant response from one survivor, as retold in one history of the campaign: “At length, she asked the wounded Marine what, for him, had been the hardest part of the action. The boy thought for a moment, then beamed through the haze of his pain and a pretty heavy dose of morphine. The answer he gave the haughty lady reporter summed it up for all the men who had participated: ‘The hardest part of all this was getting four inches of dick out of six inches of clothes to take a leak.’” [5]

The first time I read the anecdote I chuckled. But the more I thought about it – because the story is the sort that stays with a person – the more it occurred to me that it contained and conveyed a very important idea about war. Review your bookshelves mentally, chock full of the history of warfare and ask yourself: In how many cases, either strategically or tactically, has there ever been enough, whether it was people, personnel, materiel, time, public support or whatever? None? Very few? I thought so. [6]

Assuming the anecdote to be true, we know, definitively, that the Marine managed to overcome the deficit to solve his problem. Necessity would have required that. Assuming the young Marine was inspired to fabricate the story by a bit of cheeky poetic license – or even that the entire story is apocryphal – then the metaphor was meant to convey the unassailable fact that the campaign had been nearly impossible to endure. Whatever the answer is, I feel comfortable relying upon its “truth” to understand something about the Chosin Campaign (and the histories bear out this description of the difficulties, literally and metaphorically), the nature of war, and the importance of individual endeavour. [7]

Where war promises to create seemingly significant shortfalls, how success has ever been achieved can be explained by the mysterious ingenuity of individuals under duress. The inspiration necessary to remedy the 2/6th shortfall can only come from the human element. It is the repair of vehicles on campaign with duct tape and baling wire when the spare parts are scarce, and every other act of ingenuity derring do. [8] Wavell’s advice, obvious on the matter of the quotidian or seemingly irrelevant, also speaks inferentially to the tactical and strategic value of the individual’s seemingly mundane acts in war, either singly or in aggregation. It is very often the powerful small things that individuals do within the crucible of war and combat that make the difference.

The Happiness of the Soldier.  The most perfect example of the soldier’s happiness in service is contained within an excerpt towards the end of C.S. Forester’s Rifleman Dodd. Despite being a work of fiction, given its studied portrayal of the experience of war and an ideal of soldiering, what can be learned from it remains relevant. Dodd, nearing the end of his campaign behind French lines, is brought under direct scrutiny in a particular moment where the narrator chooses to speak directly to the reader:

It was nearly dark by now, and Dodd had but a short time to observe these things. As twilight fell he picked his way up stream again and chose a lair for himself – a stony hollow in the side of the ravine, where he could rest. That night, just as on most of the other night and most of the days, it rained heavily and a cold wind blew. Dodd still, before going to sleep, found passing through his mind that old Biblical passage about foxes having holes and birds having nests.

Yet if he had been asked – it is quite impossible, but assume it to have happened – if he were happy, he would not have known what to reply. He would have admitted readily enough that he was uncomfortable, that he was cold, and badly fed, and verminous; that his clothes were in rags, and his feet and knees and elbows raw and bleeding through much walking and crawling; that he was in ever-present peril of his life, and that he really did not expect to survive the adventure he was about to thrust himself into voluntarily, but all this had nothing to do with happiness: that was something he never stopped to think about. Perhaps the fact that he did not think about it proves he was happy. He was a soldier carrying out his duty as well as he knew how. He would have been the first to admit that under the wise direction of an officer what he had done and what he proposed to do might be more successful, but as it was he felt (or rather he would have felt if he had thought about it) he had nothing with which to reproach himself. And that condition is not at all far from true happiness. At the same time, he would have been utterly astonished if he had ever been told that some day a real printed book would devote paragraphs to the consideration of his frame of mind.

I have always enjoyed the way Forester whipsaws the reader’s emotions and believe that the truth emerges more clearly because of the unlikely context of Dodd’s travails. By defining in such stark terms his experience and still describing him as enjoying (albeit unconsciously) a state of happiness we can understand one perspective of the ideal in military service. The happiness portrayed does not arise out of an easy or pleasant condition. That Dodd can be happy at this point in the story – that he can feel without self reproach at this moment for what he has accomplished and intends – is a testament to ancient martial ideals. It speaks to the standards of training and discipline to which he was held, the adhesion to unit and Army that had been instilled in him, and the strong morale which these created. Yes, I understand this is a work of fiction. Whether Wellington’s Army or the British Army of the early 19^th century could have produced a Dodd is uncertain, but not beyond the realm of possible. James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender, in their history of the Continental Army in the American War for Independence describe the Redcoats who marched up Breed’s Hill for the third attack as no mere automatons but awesomely brave soldiers. Forester may have goosed reality to create a legend or myth of the British Army, but his basis, the foundation, did in fact pursue those ideals. [10]

Under any circumstances when the human, the individual is well prepared in the myriad ways required by military service, when he is motivated, etc., what he can achieve is nearly limitless and certainly quite valuable. Dodd’s example as this ideal explains why he was the choice to be the standard for the Marine Corps, the American military institution that prides itself upon the quality of its individuals – their training, dedication and discipline – as a cornerstone to the strength of its Corps. [11]

In War, as in History, People and the Little Epic Things They Do Matter. Industrialization and information-based technologies have many convinced that the capabilities they will bring contain the means to a silver bullet to battlefield, theatre and geo-strategic dominance. This is unsupportable in the historical evidence and as a guide to decision-making potentially quite dangerous. Were that true the wheel would have ended war. Many millennia later, here we find ourselves, still fighting, having pursued relentless innovation of the means of war in the face of every seemingly insurmountable past advance. Nothing is magically going to make war easy. Don’t think like a jackass.

The last post focused on the actions of generals, of commanders of armies. None would balk at an examination of their words, actions, and, of course, their importance, even if this meant a winding detour through some vaguely irrelevant letters. But when we descend to the level of the ranker, the question of defining the larger relevance looms as a toll we must pay. Furthermore, in this post, unlike the last with its focus upon the doings of armies and the conduct of wars, there are fewer than a dozen people involved and affected. Nevertheless, I would argue that the truths revealed in their small stories are of greater value than the lessons’ learned from Washington and Howe.

While most military historians would blanch at an accusation that they did not value the wit, wisdom or experience of the average individual in war, in reality most scholarship does not rely upon this evidence. It cannot be helped, we are enamoured of the bright lights, the stars, the leaders, the big ideas, plans and campaigns, believing that those at the top must know the most, must be the most important, and must offer the greatest wisdom and insight to guide our understanding of past events. It seems that such sources offer proofs that are unassailable.

Given all of the history that has ever been written, if our focus has always been too high and too keen to follow the big events, one is left wonder, and perhaps now regret, what has been overlooked or lost to our knowledge and understanding of the past and present because someone decided an event or action was too small for serious consideration. It seems impossible, but there must be very much out there waiting to be discovered.

Endnotes:

1. Captain Michael Hubler, USMC Reserves, “Limeade on Guadalcanal,” USNIP Vol. 70, #502, December 1944, p. 1501.

2. And, as my current research is concerned with subsistence in the American military tradition – a tributary of which includes the rankers’ efforts to improve their lot by ingenuity and shared treats – I found the article, especially the author’s desire to mark the event, to be quite pleasing to the points I hope to make.

3. At least, that is what I intend to claim here. As no determination on the long-term wisdom of my rule will be made before I am long gone I have every right to be bold. Stupid Clausewitz humour alert – all but the most intrepid flee. FROG and FICTION: I frequently err, and swap the “r” in the two as I think about them. As both remain words, it’s a bit dangerous, because while I’m not sure they would have been as famous or universally applicable, I am certain that Frog and Fiction can complicate war and battle. Yes, I do indulge myself a bit to say what I want here.

4. Art as opposed to the science of it. Art is the component of war that relies upon the human element.

5. Eric Hammel, Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War, (New York: Vanguard Press, 1981) p. 349.

6. Thanks to a very smart WWI historian who pointed out the logistical merits of the static fronts after 1915. Of course, the societies were coming danger close, by war’s end, to having insufficient manpower resources. The near loss of an entire generation would have an indelible effect on the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and to a lesser extent other combatants. Perhaps that’s the paradoxical lesson of unconstrained largesse in war – you will fight yourself to death if given half the chance. Sorry, there appears to be a lot of math in this for a historical essay.

7. NB: this is not an example of the importance of small things. It is an example of how single, human efforts can overcome seemingly impossible deficits.

8. Whatever else may be said of Ambrose’s histories, I cannot fault his paean to the soldiers’ inclinations and skills in these sorts of fixes on the battlefields of Europe. William Corson’s original concept for the Combined Action Program in Vietnam relied upon a similar proclivity and capacity of individuals to cobble together acceptable answers to the ordinary problems of rural South Vietnamese civilians.

9. C. S. Forester, Rifleman Dodd, Nautical Aviation Publishing Company of America: Mt. Pleasant, SC (2006), p. 125.

10. Current British Army recruitment advertising slogan: “Army: Be More. Do More.” Comparisons? Also, the ads are running on music video countdown shows. I suppose it’s no different than where an early 19^th century “recruiter” would have made his personnel quota requirements.

11. General Victor Krulak as Commandant of the Marine Corps made it his choice as the book to be read by every member of that institution in 1996 (check) because of the paragon of service it depicted. The Dodd Standard: every Marine a rifleman, every Marine a Dodd.

After some intensive research (read: googling for a few minutes) I learned that that Eskimos do not in fact have hundreds of words for ‘snow’. Nor, in case you were wondering (which you probably weren’t), do Arabs have dozens of words for ‘sand’.

This makes for an amusing contrast with the plethora of English words we have for conflicts that could be classed as ‘insurgencies’ (or conflicts very close to insurgencies). I’ve noticed the use of a range of words by different authors during my research, but never really stopped to think about quite how many we really had. Not until the other day when, to pass some spare time, I started to idly jot them all down in a notebook:

• Irregular Warfare
• Unconventional Warfare
• Guerrilla War
• Terrorism
• Counter-Terrorism
• Insurgency
• Counterinsurgency
• COIN
• Partisan Warfare
• People’s War
• Revolutionary War
• Limited Warfare
• Low Intensity Conflict
• Revolt
• Uprising
• Insurrection
• Rebellion
• Revolution
• War of Independence
• Small War
• Non-traditional warfare
• Resistance
• Savage Wars
• Wars Amongst the People
• Fourth Generation Warfare
• Maoist Warfare
• Post Maoist Warfare
• Focos
• Coup
• Putsch
• Riot
• Mutiny
• Violent Protest
• Assymetric Warfare
• Retrograde Warfare
• Hit and Run Attacks
• Colonial Warfare
• Anti-Colonial Warfare
• Anti-Bandit Campaigns
• Popular Warfare
• Protracted War
• Wars of Pacification
• Freedom Fighting
• Emergency
• Resistance
• Civil War
• Civil Strife
• Civil Disturbance
• Violent dissent
• Class Warfare
• Hybrid Warfare
• Compound Warfare
• War of the Third Kind
• Anti-Thesis to Industrial War

New additions:

• Occupation (Jared)
• Armed Rebellion (A.E. Stahl)
• Troubles (Ed (The Real One))
• Sedition (Me)
• Dead Ending (Perry)
• Military Aid to the Civil Power (Alex)
• The Long War (Alex)
• Tactical Use of Armed Struggle (Alex)
• Three Block War (Jill Sargent Russell)
• Surgency (The Faceless Bureaucrat)

(While many of these do not technically describe exactly the same thing, but instead reflect subtle differences, they are nonetheless often used to describe the same or similar events/conflicts)

With the recent withdrawl from Iraq and the winding down of operations in Afghanistan, I think we can rest proudly that – no matter what else we may or may not have achieved – we have come up with a heck of a lot of words to describe that kind of conflict. And people have pretty strong feelings about the use of some of these words too, as shown here, there, here, there, here and finally there.

As we enter a period of reflection about these recent conflicts, it seems to me like the very first step we need to take to adopt a simpler selection of words. Some diversity is useful, but if we keep using as many words as those listed above, we’re just going to become/remain confused. Some analysts  will talk about ‘insurgencies’, others will talk about ‘terrorism’, yet more will talk about ‘wars amonst the people’, and no one will really know exactly what anyone else is talking about.

I think we need a more straight forward way of talking about these conflicts. Eskimos don’t need hundreds of words for snow, and we don’t need hundreds of words for ‘insurgency’ either.

P.s. Did I miss any?

My expectation is you will have ignored all the words save the last and checked out this post for the COIN content. Don’t worry; on that score you will not be disappointed – eventually. To get there, however, you first must indulge the military historian to present a reintroduction of some old documents. The general historical commentary thereon will be made tolerable by a bit of fun about a dog, and who won’t enjoy that? Then, we’ll address the COIN content of the documents.

The documents in question are a series of correspondence between Generals William Howe and George Washington in October 1777. At that time the British Army is in occupation of the Colonial capitol of Philadelphia, and the substance of the letters deals with the Continental Army’s disabling of several grain mills in the vicinity of British acquisition. Welcome to a very fine example of logistics warfare. Before leaving you to read them for yourself, I offer the recommendation that you do so out loud – the drama of the language certainly benefits from it.

To GENERAL Washington:
Head Quarters, 3 October 1777.

Sir, Your Parties having destroyed several Mills in the adjacent Country, which can only distress the peaceable Inhabitants residing in their Houses, I am constrained from a Regard to their Sufferings, and a sense of the Duty I owe to the Public, to forewarn you of the Calamities which may ensue, and to express my Abhorrence of such a Proceeding. At the same Time I am inclined to believe, that the Outrages already committed have not been in consequence of your Orders, and that this early Notice will engage you to put an effectual Stop to them; If not, I do in the most direct Terms disclaim any share in creating the general Scene of Distress among the Inhabitants, which such Destruction must inevitably cause. With due respect, I am, &c.

W. HOWE.

***

To SIR WILLIAM HOWE
Head Quarters, 6 October 1777.

Sir: I cannot forbear assuring you, that I am somewhat at a Loss to understand the design of your Letter of the 3d. instant. I can hardly believe you to be serious in remonstrating against a proceedure [sic] fully Authorized by the common practice of Armies, countenanced by the Conduct of your own Troops at Trenton, and obviously calculated to answer a purpose very different from that of distressing the Inhabitants and increasing the common calamities incident to a State of War. If this is a consequence of it, it is an unavoidable one, and had no part in producing the Measure.

I flatter myself the Public is sufficiently sensible, that it is not my wish nor aim to distress, but to protect the Inhabitants, and know how to interpret any thing, that with respect to Individuals, may seem to deviate from this end. Nor will they be easily persuaded to consider it, as any injustice or Cruelty to them, that my parties should have rendered useless for a time a few Mills in the Neighbourhood of your Army, which were so situated as to be capable of affording them no inconsiderable Advantages.

I am happy to find you express so much sensibility to the sufferings of the Inhabitants, as it gives room to hope, that those wanton and unnecessary depredations, which have heretofore, in too many instances, marked the conduct of your Army, will be discontinued for the future. The instances I allude to need not be enumerated, your own Memory will suggest them to your imagination, from the destruction of Charles Town in the Massachusetts, down to the More recent burning of Mills, Barnes and Houses at the Head of Elk, and in the vicinity of the Schuylkill. I am etc.

***

To SIR WILLIAM HOWE
6 October 1777

General Washington’s compliments to General Howe. He does himself the pleasure to return him a dog, which accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription on the Collar, appears to belong to General Howe.*

The dog bit was good, right? The second and third letters run in order in the Papers volume, so one reads of the dog immediately after being immersed in the fraught interchange between two generals at war, and if only for that reason it is such a researcher’s delight. However, it also provides an entry point to engage with the first important aspect of these documents, which is their tone. While their focus is on the substantive matters at issue in the letters, the two Generals are earnest and indignant with each other, if at times also a bit sarcastic. Of course, there is nothing too overt with the last, because within the discourse they remain locked in what I can only describe as the honors and humility Death Match style that governed communications at the time. Each seeking to outdo the other in respect given, it is as if victory went to the party able to abase himself the more to the other. It is not a style one is accustomed to any longer given the acid tone that has overtaken political discourse generally, not to mention that which might proceed between two adversaries.

Next I have to wonder what each hoped to achieve in the exchange. It is as probable as anything else that the direct content of the letters was not the primary purpose for which they were written. Howe had no real standing to make his complaints despite his “sense of Duty…to the Public,”(1) and Washington’s critique of British Army depredations would have had little effect. Thus, we are left to consider what other objectives the letters might have served. Was Howe’s intent to let Washington know that he was aware of the Continental Army’s efforts to block his army’s attempt to live off the local economy? (2) Was it to probe the scope of Washington’s knowledge of his army’s activities, to determine whether such actions were isolated incidents or part of a larger campaign? Or did he just want to tweak his opposing general a bit with the chiding? Washington’s response provides similar room to posit these questions. But really, there’s nothing better than his passage regarding British Army depredations, where he writes that “the instances I allude to need not be enumerated, your own Memory will suggest them to your imagination,” after which he goes on to list the most egregious. Whether “they need not be enumerated,” apparently Washington decided that some amount of emphasis was appropriate.

A third point of consideration regarding the correspondences concerns their political content and how that contrasts with contemporary standards. First there are the technological and bureaucratic changes in the day to day diplomacy of war. In the past century, the advent of mass and rapid communications have enabled the transfer of much of this level of exchange out of the hands of generals and into the hands of professional diplomats and political representatives. But imagine, for example, if Ike and Rommel had maintained a regular correspondence. What might each have learned about the other (as individuals and as representatives of their respective armies), and how might this knowledge have shaped the conduct of the campaigns in Normandy and Western Europe campaigns? While we might imagine without much difficulty that scenario, the idea of COMISAF (3) chatting on a regular basis with the head of the Taliban’s forces is entirely implausible. As well there is the issue that communication with the enemy bestows legitimacy upon their forces and cause. Although this was true in the late 18th century, I would submit that the issue has become more important in the intervening centuries given the increase in the mass politicization of war in the intervening years. Inasmuch as Washington would have been tried as a traitor were the Colonists to fail in their bid for independence (or, for the British audience, disrespectful act of armed rebellion) within the arena of conflict and these exchanges Howe had not the least problem according him the respect of his billet as Commander in Chief of an army.

On a sorry note, however, this means that future historians will not benefit from such sources. My sense of current communications practices in the US military is that official and high level correspondence will be useless in terms of substantive content. These exchanges are boring, brown-nosing, or so domestically politically aware as to contain nothing of use. More dismal still, I just shudder for future PhD researchers slogging through the PowerPoint archives. Not to fear, however, as there will be quality materials, to be found within, among similar sources, the e-mail caches of the officer ranks from senior Captain (post command) to junior Colonel (in/pre command), and their NCO equivalents. The personnel in this echelon have a lot to say, and now, with the internet, they also have a variety of platforms across which to do so. In that vein, I am having visions of the giddy electronic excavation of Doctrine Man’s Facebook wall by future ancient historians.

I also have to add a few words on the fact that the American War for Independence is largely AWOL within these shores. No, the American is NOT pouting that “her” war is missing. This is no mere nationalistic pique being expressed, this is a serious scholarly concern. First, I feel keenly the absence of the perspective of the British side of the war. I think the narrative of the whole event would be vastly more interesting, and I would be a significantly better scholar, were there a clearer, more detailed view of this story. Second, although I understand the reticence to wade into the events of a disappointed past, that’s not a good enough reason for the silence. The shelves of book stores south of the Mason Dixon Line in the US are crammed with the narratives and interpretations of that erstwhile perfidious region’s inglorious military past. (Apparently the Yankee military historian has an opinion or two on that war.) And the Vietnam War is a perennially popular subject for research by American scholars, to give a more contemporary example of a willingness to hash out military failures and flailing. Third, what has been foresworn in military knowledge by this avoidance? The pragmatic decision regarding North American Colonial policy – to cut losses in a conflict not bound to bring strategic and political benefit – might have benefitted the generals of later wars. (4)

I’m sure others could generate more questions or comments regarding the letters – and I hope to see them suggested here in the commentary. The unending prospects for intellectual interrogation comprise the enchanting thing about history, about the documents and the limitless stories that can be explored through them. It is truly an elephant of monstrous proportions. (5)

But I promised you COIN. And that is what you shall get. Or maybe this is about insurgency? I’m not entirely certain which pertains better, but I do know it’s about the strategic importance of popular sentiment towards the armed forces and the governments in war – or as we now call it, Hearts and Minds – and the American War for Independence’s long battle over the support (and resources) of the citizenry local to the migrating theaters of the conflict.

Among the more difficult concepts – to comprehend as well as execute – in COIN theory and doctrine is Hearts and Minds. It may seem an affectionate moniker, but in contemporary western military experience it has been, to put it kindly, an awkward romance. In war, the struggle over the will and support of a local population is a challenge to pursue when the natural preference of any army is for kinetic and coercive tactics. Even many who willingly follow the holy writ on COIN can roll their eyes at the mention of H&M.

At least in the American (if not the western) military tradition I can see several reasons for this skepticism about policies directed at gaining and maintaining the support of local civilians. First, it’s such a fuzzy concept with very few hard and fast means or methods. It often requires that the fight must be sacrificed at times. (By this I mean the destruction of the enemy forces might have to come second to helping, protecting, or otherwise serving the needs of civilians.) Within the effort it can be difficult to mark progress, and even a job well done can take a very long time to manifest results. And sometimes you will need to take a bloody nose in their pursuit. (6) None of these characteristics function well in the rationalistic and prescriptive western military system that has dominated the second half of the 20th century and seems poised to continue at least for a little while, popular though insurgency seems to be these days.

It’s not fun, I get it. Nevertheless, no matter the difficulties one might find with the concept or its implementation, it does no good to try to dismiss the pursuit as something beyond the traditional purview of the armed forces. (I’m talking to the “the point of an army is take the field of battle and fight and defeat the enemy” crowd out there.) The exchange clearly proves that both Howe and Washington made the matters of their armies’ interactions with the civilian communities and how they were treated as strategic, operational, and tactical concerns in their respective commands. (7) And in fact, both generals (and armies) were engaged continuously in activities to sway, coerce, protect, and make use of the populations local to their quarters and battlefields. Dislike it though you might, this concept has historical legs.

I might even go so far as to argue that in the American Revolution and War for Independence the civilians were a decisive front. The disaffected (or just plain greedy) patriots, undecided moderates and outright loyalists provided fertile ground over which the armies could contend. Whether it was political/military support, resources, intelligence or billeting, the local population could sell or submit valuable commodities to the armies – or deny the same to the other. This period of the war is, in fact, exemplary for Washington’s efforts in attention to these issues. In the fall of 1777, his correspondence reflect that he was concerned with the dual problem of denying supplies to the British Army without angering too great a proportion of the local population. His letters to commanders in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland direct them to secure, move, or otherwise dispose of any supplies at risk to the British Army. However, mindful of the sensitivities of the people, he often relied on local magistrates to carry out the actual seizures. (8)

Decisive though it may have been, I would also argue that the civilian front operated differently for each combatant. For the British the objective would have been to gain their support – the popular will was their game to actively pursue and win with an effective seduction. On the other hand, Washington, the Continental Army, the patriot cause, had to work not to alienate the people in the fight against the British Army, and hence it was their game to lose. On balance it is clear that Washington put in the better, more effective effort into his courtship than the rather indifferent and clumsy British.

The importance of this aspect of warfare having thus emerged in the form with which we are familiar today would endure and grow. Its next appearance was fewer than three decades later in the Napoleonic Wars. In the Peninsular War Wellington clearly understood the reasoning behind Washington’s hearts, minds, and agriculture practice, for he takes into account their importance in his planning at Torres Vedras. It is a truism to note that warfare has always included the targeting of sources of food/wealth. However, beginning with Washington, affirmed by Wellington, and remaining true to this day, in the modern era some account of the people’s temper must be taken in such campaigns. This is Washington’s intent when he writes, “I flatter myself the Public is sufficiently sensible, that it is not my wish nor aim to distress, but to protect the Inhabitants, and know how to interpret any thing, that with respect to Individuals, may seem to deviate from this end.” Wellington behaved similarly, particularly as he had, in certain respects, to rely upon the willingness of the civilians to support his campaign to deny the French Army the support and subsistence it required on campaign. (9)

The tendency to take a relatively ahistorical view with respect to COIN and its attendant tactics reflects a curious trend to do so in many areas of defense/military policy. There is always much said about how valuable history is, but very often it gets left out or abused in decisions regarding policy. (10) As concerns COIN, I think there is a sense (a willful deception? desperate hope?) that these are modern, 20th century constructs, and are thus disconnected from the institutional and experiential legacies of contemporary armed forces – and certainly won’t remain important. I can make no guarantees for the future, but the past is unambiguous on the heritage of this component of warfare.

Next time, it will be a discussion of a US Naval Institute’s Proceedings article on limeade at Guadalcanal. Epic stuff indeed. (11)

* The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition: Revolutionary War Series (16 June 1775–14 January 1779): Volume 11 (19 August 1777–25 October 1777), Theodore J. Crackel, Editor in Chief, pp. 384, 409, and 410.

1 Does anyone think that the Crown and Parliament (or their agents) represented the Colonists at this point? No? Good. Even if the war had ended victoriously for the British at that point some form of political dissolution would have been the result.

2 The issue of local sourcing remains important today. Although this logistics plan eliminates certain obstacles, most importantly transport requirements, it can create others. Inflation and local shortages for the civilian market are the most significant effect of army purchasing upon civilians. At the Naval War College, in the Joint Military Operations core course, the Operational Logistics module warns of this to students who are prone to assume that purchasing in-theatre is the most benign (and perhaps even beneficial) logistics plan. For a wealthy army like the British in the American War for Independence this would not have been much of a problem – and it still would have been less costly than bringing it from home or other colonies. Of course, it made Continental Army acquisition that much more difficult, especially as the British could offer the farmers and merchants gold, which was vastly preferred to the increasingly devalued Continental Dollar. For a time the British Army was a financial benefactor to the Continental Army. With the surrender of General Burgoyne’s force at Saratoga and the creation of the Convention Army the British were by treaty required to provide for the subsistence of their soldiers, which they did in gold payments. Of course, the Americans used the gold for its own military acquisition and paid for the rations with Continental money. It took a while, but the British finally caught on to the fact that they were subsidizing the American war effort and provided for the subsistence of their soldiers directly.

3 This is not nearly so satisfying an acronym as COMUSMACV (Commander, United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam).

4 I’ve heard some say that the American Colonies and War for Independence were not that important to Great Britain at the time or for the succeeding history of the empire. This means they were smart enough to cut their losses – this is no inconsequential achievement and deserves attention to understand better the government’s (ultimately) sensible decision-making, as such does not always characterize policy-making in war. And although it did not take too many bloody noses the first time to get the British Army out of Afghanistan, nor the Soviet Army, today we are 10 years into Afghanistan 3.0 in the modern era. If nothing else, the English might have learned something important about the tenacity of their contemporary alliance partner.

5 No, not the awkward elephant in the room, but rather the elephant of the parable, which, when grasped by eight blind men, was described differently according to the characteristics of the specific part each had examined.

6 My personal take on COIN is that the willingness to take hits for the “people” is so influential to the cause that it is a requirement. We ask military personnel to put their lives at risk in their service, so is not so egregiously cold hearted as it seems. It is no easier, kinder, or more honorable to compass a soldier’s death storming a gun position than protecting a civilian.

7 Let’s be clear; I don’t mean to assert that Howe liked the people. I don’t really know how he felt. However, I do know he realized that the war could be won (the fighting ended) if the rebels (patriots) lost enough popular support.

8 Although he endeavored to use civilian authority where possible, nevertheless to deny supplies to the British Army Washington was willing to be quite as ruthless as he felt necessary. However, when it came to impressments for the support of his army Washington was beyond conservative in his caution. In fact, this reluctance is cited as one of the few time he can be characterized as defiant towards Congressional authority.

9 John Morgan’s article on the logistics plan for Napoleon’s campaign in Spain describes the nightmare encountered by the French as they tried to live off the land in Catalonia. Napoleon’s idea to have “war feed war;” i.e., for Spanish agriculture and taxes to support his army, was a dismal failure. (“War Feeding War? The Impact of Logistics on the Napoleonic Occupation of Catalonia,” JMH, 73, (Jan 2009), pp. 83-16.)

10 For example, clearly someone forgot to do some research prior to OIF – our own experience of throwing off dictatorship clearly demonstrates that nobody likes a foreigner to do the job for you. Here’s the kicker; that lesson was aptly demonstrated by none other than the French in the American War for Independence. And, I think it’s the originating story for the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.

11 If you’re wondering why there are so many footnotes for this thought piece, I should confess I have very many colleagues who quite enjoy them, so I wanted to have a little fun.

Yesterday, Jack McDonald and I from Kings of War visited the British Army’s Force Development and Training Command for a show and tell about their vision and work to date for the Army in the post-Afghanistan and post-Iraq World. This event was aimed in part to demonstrate how the Army has been working to address the concerns raised during the run up to the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review about the Army’s failure to innovate and think. 

I’m writing this post separately to Jack, as we both took different things away from the day, and so a point by point comparison would be fairly…pointless? (cue sound of two elephants falling off the edge of a cliff). Instead, I’m going to zero in on what struck me on the day, which is mainly that I thought things seem very hopeful. While realities are often hard to achieve, the Army is beginning to develop a vision – and a belief in that vision – of how it can improve over  the coming years. So, here is a short list of the things that struck me as promising:

-> The process is being spearheaded by a dynamic and intelligent group of senior and mid-level army commanders - particularly Lieutenant General Paul Newton – who are prepared to challenge establishment thinking and really push the upper echelons of on some of the most important issues facing the British Army today. This is undoubtedly a good thing.

-> They are attempting to drive forward methods of internal learning, and find practical, workable ways of managing these process. For example, promoting post-operations briefings that bring together forces on the ground with other key players such as equipment designers and doctrine writers. Imagine a scenario in which an infantry commander who wears a flak jacket on patrol can feedback directly to the jacket designer that the item felt too cumbersome or didn’t provide enough protection. This is shockingly sensible stuff! Similarly, the Army is developing an evaluation process during which its members are asked to talk back through elements of an action, including the original objectives, a step by step description of what actually happened, if they were aware of other things going on around them, whether or not they felt they achieved their goals, and what future adjustments they would recommend, all accompanied by state-of-the-art analytical tools. Evaluation is more my wife’s topic than mine, but from what little I’ve gleaned from her, this sounds like a good quality process that rivals what we are trying to do in mainstream civilian institutions.

-> They are searching for and drilling into the issues that matter. For example, they have identified that just 5 to 20 percent of shots have been hitting the target during live fire tactical training, a stunningly low figure. They have identified why this occurs (firing training is often viewed as box ticking exercise) and why it matters (COIN campaigns require precision shooting to ensure we accurately hit the targets we want to and avoid collateral damage against non-combatants). They have even thrown a little history into the mix: drawing a fascinating parallel between the recognition of low small arms expertise during the Boer War, the subsequent focus on firing training afterwards, and the high quality of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914.

-> They want to invest more in people, not in terms of money or numbers, but rather by helping their officers to develop improved intellectual capacity, so that they can contribute more original thinking, critique established ideas and generally pursue a more informed approach in their work. Possibilities included seeking to engage potential recruits better at the university level, offering more higher education opportunities earlier (and potentially linking these to promotion, as per equivalent civilian industries) and supporting – rather than impeding – officers with undertaking PhDs.

-> Finally, they are reaching out to academics for input, commentary and feedback. And these are not limited to the same old people, with whom they have built up established – and possibly overly comfortable relationships – but are instead to fresh commentators (the invitation of authors from Kings of War is a case in point). At the end of the day the entire group was told to talk or write about the event as much as we wished and to be as critical as we wanted, even though the day itself had been splendidly frank and candid.

Now, my glowing comments thus far might suggest that I have been brought off by a free lunch and some coffees, which is of course not remotely true (although I must say that their sandwiches were stellar and their biscuit range impressive). It’s more that I honestly believe that they are going in the right direction. We have here a group of senior staff who are seriously critiquing the army and challenging establishment norms. This is no mean feat. The Lieutenant General told us that one of the very first questions he has to answer is: ‘Why?’ I am very happy that it is him, not me sitting with the Army’s leadership and having to answer that particular question!

I do have some concerns, most notably that while the Army is attempting to learn backwards from its recent experiences to prepare itself for the future, including through improving their capacity for fighting hybrid conflicts and conducting urban warfare campaigns, they aren’t really connecting with the forward looking, blue sky thinking that they need to in order to really cover their bases.

I queried the Lieutenant General on this, and was told that that they are not attempting to undertake revolutionary new changes, but instead “reclaiming the right for the army to think for itself” and conducting “a rectification of absurdity”.

Admirable goals both. But this still doesn’t quite answer how the above changes will be useful if the threat we face turns out to be one that we don’t expect. And it is here, for me, that the army really needs to stop and think: How do we prepare for threats that we don’t yet know about? How do we avoid training our forces for one type of campaign (e.g. an urban focused ‘war amongst the people’) that ends up being an entirely different one (e.g. a war away from the people in the arctic)? Looking backwards is a good way to avoid repeating mistakes, but as the French have so learned so dearly, preparing for the wars of the past doesn’t necessarily mean being ready for the wars of the future (see Grandstander’s post towards the end).

Furthermore, How do we ensure that we don’t abandon our conventional methods in such great measure that in the event of a major new conventional war we are left totally unprepared? This isn’t quite as infeasible as it sounds. During the 1920s and the 1930s the British failed to focus on developing tank warfare because we believed our future wars would be fought in the colonies, not mainland Europe. Hitler proved us staggeringly wrong.

On top of all of the other work we do, we need to ensure that at the most basic level we don’t make this mistake again. You can lose a COIN war and survive intact – albeit painfully – you can’t lose a world war and do the same.

The British have a long history of stealing/saving (depending on your perspective) historical monuments from other cultures. The Elgin Marbles are a case in point.

However, I think we can all agree that we reached a new high of historical preservation/theft with the acquisition in 2003 of the buttocks from the iconic statue of Saddam Hussein by a (now former) SAS soldier, which he wants to auction to raise funds for wounded UK soldiers.

But now apparently the Iraqi government has demanded its return, claiming that the former dictator’s shiny metal ass is…wait for it…“a cultural antiquity”.

I have no doubt that in some ways it’s a very serious issue with lots of valid argumentation on both sides…but sometimes you really do just have to laugh!

Of course, the band's founder, Phil Campbell, left in 1984 for a very successful career with Motörhead; but that, dear readers, is another story for another day.

Amidst a hockey-sock of uncertainty and anxiety, one country stands out from the crowd–and that is saying a great deal, given that the crowd includes Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, China, and North Korea (to name but a few).  That country, of course, is Iran.

Now, as the sharper amongst you may have guessed, I am a bureaucrat (at least for the moment!) and that means that I belong to one of the most risk-averse (and risk-insulated) tribes that you will ever meet.   Therefore, I will not offer a prediction as to what –if anything–will happen.  But, because I am specialist bureaucrat that deals with risk analysis and management, what I will do is analyze the process of determining the risks and the options surrounding ‘the problem of Iran’. 

Risk

What is needed here is a little methodology (bear with me).  Risk is an oft-abused term that needs to be defined before it is of any use.   The risk to an object (be it a person, an asset, or a programme) is generally regarded as the function between threats to that object, the vulnerabilities of that object, probability of those threats actually occurring, and the impact or consequence to the object if they do occur. 

The very first thing to determine,  however, is the object in question.  ‘What is at stake?’ Or more stated more properly, ‘What is at risk?’  This is crucial, because depending on what we regard as ‘at risk’ the threat posed by Iran varies significantly.  Given that we are operating in the realm of the political, which means that there are a number of choices or perspectives that we might adopt, the question of what is at risk cannot be assumed to be self-evident.  Do we consider American regional influence to be at risk?  Or is it the existence of the State of Israel? Or the security of other allies or states of interest, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Afghanistan?  Or is it the concept of innocent passage and perhaps even freedom of the high seas?  Of course, we may choose to hedge our bets and use fluffy terms, such as ‘national interest’, but since these lack specificity, we only (perhaps not by accident) add to the ambiguity, rather than providing clarity. 

Commentators, such as John Yoo, have made the case that Iran is “a looming threat” but it is not quite clear what it threatens, exactly.  The breathless warnings of Cassandras like Yoo and Matthew Kroening take it for granted that the reader knows what is at stake.  Frankly, most of the time it seems as if they are implying that it is the very existence of civilisation, at least, that is in jeopardy.  As Stephen Walt points out, this is a tried, tested, and true (unfortunately) rhetorical device that bears no relation to the actual risk being described. 

In any event, we can see that even in the first step of the risk analysis process, we are beset by argument and debate.  What is critically important to see is that this debate is not, at this stage, about facts, but rather about perspectives.  About chosen frames of reference.  About ideological positions.  And that means it is often going to be a nasty, emotion, and heated debate, rather than a productive one. 

Unfortunately, the subjective aspects of the debate that characterise the beginning of the ‘risk analysis’ process often continue to colour the remainder of it.  For instance, when the notion of probability comes up, it is most often discussed in equally subjective terms.  Yoo, for instance, speaks of Iran as an “unavoidable challenge”, pushing any measurement of probability towards the end of spectrum marked certain.  And yet any forecast is clearly arbitrary, even if mathematical terms are introduced.  There is no way of knowing the probability of an Iranian nuclear strike.  Attempts to ‘know’ these things have failed in the past (such as with Iraq in the lead up to the 2003 invasion), not least because the process of measuring has a significant impact on the thing being measured (ooo…quantum politics kids, a la Herr Doktor Heisenberg, hang on to your hats!).  Warnings, monitoring, discussing options–these activities alter the risk equation as it goes along.  See, for instance, this week’s naval cat and mouse game.    

The same skewing occurs with respect to impact.  Those looking to spur action choose to portray potential impacts in the most dire way, while those looking for other courses will downplay any consequences.  That goes for second order consequences, too.  THEY will cause Armageddon, but WE will be surgical in our response, causing nothing but joy and light.

Response

Once an analysis has been conducted and a determination of the risk made, the next logical step is to formulate some kind of response.  There are two important aspects to be aware of here.  The first is that ‘risk appetite’ or ‘risk tolerance’ is not a pre-set value.  What one actor can live with, another may find intolerable.  Famously, for instance, Dick Cheney was said to have preferred the ’1% Doctrine’ (whereby even a 1% chance of an event occurring was enough to warrant a response).  Others set there thresholds higher.  Some too high: Neville Chamberlain, for instance, faced with indications of Germany’s desire for domination in Europe, was satisfied with verbal assurances to the contrary.   Again, I would claim that risk appetite can also be associated with a particular ideological–rather than empirical or biological–position, so where you sit often determines where you stand, as it were.

Given a particular risk tolerance, there are four strategic options for risk management:

1. Avoidance
2. Transfer
3. Mitigation
4. Acceptance

Avoidance means what it says: try and have nothing to do with the threats that you have identified, insulating yourself from their impacts.  Essentially, you are trying to reduce the probability of a threat occurring to zero.  This can be easier said than done, depending on the circumstances.  If you want to avoid the risk to your life posed by commercial air travel, it can be done.  You may have to forgo some opportunities (vacations abroad, membership in altitude-calibrated societies…), but it is possible.   In the world of geopolitics, however, it is not so easy, especially at the strategic level.  Again, the issue really defines how you frame the argument; what is at risk in the first place?  The USN could, for instance, avoid confrontation with Iran by withdrawing from Gulf.  This, however, would not work as a feasible strategy if the ‘object at risk’ were US freedom of the seas, for instance. 

The second risk management option is transfer.  In ordinary realms (such as finance or commerical operations) risk transfer means insurance.  Essentially, one outsources the risk, by passing it on to a third party.  Worried about the threat of fire as a source of risk to your home, you can ‘transfer the risk’ to the insurance company.  Note that while some benefit (and arguably peace of mind) can come from such a transfer, you can never really transfer all the risk away.  If your house burns down, you might get a pay-out, but you cannot escape the risk of being injured or killed in the blaze.  Again, note that the risk that was transferred was specifically about a particular ‘object at risk’ (the physical dwelling).  Your life is another matter entirely.  In geopolitical terms, risk transfer is often attempted–by kicking difficult balls into touch, by referring them to the Security Council, or Allies, or other actors.  But, just like in real life, there is often a sticky residue that remains.  Iran is not North Korea where a strategy of containment and compartmentalisation has worked (to a degree). 

The third option is mitigation.  It is sometimes referred to as control, but I think that overstates the case.  This is the most ”active” of the options: it contains the measures one takes to try and reduce the risk.  Generally speaking this can be done in two ways: by reducing the threat or by reducing the vulnerability to that threat.  In physical security terms, this might mean going out and disrupting or destroying those pesky terrorists or pirates.  Or it might mean improving the armour plating on your vehicles, or getting a newer high-tech IED jamming device.  Geopolitically, it might mean increasing your means of deterrence or launching pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, or providing naval escorts to commercial vessels navigating the tricky Straits of Hormuz.  Whatever the decision, this option is about capabilities.  There is little point in coming up with ideas that cannot be put into practice.  Similarly, there is little point in implementing plans that have no effect.  Making a sweeping generalisation (and invoking the Rid Principle of Blogorific Freedom in so doing) those commentators, be they civilian or military, that one might label as Hawks, tend to put their faith in this option as the best one available.  More guns, better ships, awesome F-35s–these are the ‘mitigating measures’ that are needed to address risks. 

 Finally, we come to acceptance, which while the term of art, is not one that I think adequately addresses what this option actually entails.  One way of looking at acceptance is to view it as resigning oneself to the risk that remains after all else has been tried.  Another way is to see it as the result of a deliberate ‘cost-benefit’ analysis: whatever the potential upside is (a better reputation, cost savings from not taking an aggressive approach, etc.) outweighs the potential downside (money spent on guns and not butter, potential to ignite a tinderbox, etc.)  I think both views are needed.  The problem is, of course, that acceptance is–perhaps more than any other option–bound up in the inherently subjective/ideological Gordian Knot of risk tolerance/risk appetite.  How much risk should we accept?  How far should we attempt to avoid, transfer, and mitigate before we accept?  All very good questions, and none of them are technical in nature.  They are inherently political, and that is where the fun starts.

While not a formal risk management option, I would like to propose that what lies behind these active options is the idea of risk absorption.  In short, this is what we end up with when all that ‘sticky residue’ (mentioned above) and ‘unintended consequences/second order risks’ and accepted risks are accounted for.  Often times, the total risk picture is not known, due to neglect, the sheer complexity of it all, errors in calculation and/or wishful thinking.  But all the ‘real risk’ (if such a thing could ever be known) is absorbed by an object…until it can no longer be accommodated.  For instance, we might say that we accept the risk of a nuclear Iran, but can we really?  Or, we might say that we can accept the risk of armed conflict with Iran if that is what results from a strategy of ‘not backing down’.  Maybe, though, with all the other risks that we have absorbed (either knowingly or unknowingly) perhaps our capacity to deal with that risk is exceeded.  Maybe we need to cut our budgets and cannot deal with two contingencies at the same time any longer.  So we might ‘accept’ a risk, without being able to actually deal with it. 

In reality, of course, nothing is simple.  There are not simple ‘risk-reward’ calculations, or cost-benefit analyses to be done.  And it is not that we would make the ‘right’ decisions ‘if only’ we had more information, more time, another satellite, better allies, more honest interlocutors, better hair (but it never hurts).  There are risks that need to be traded, prioritised and off-set.  Military risks sit along side financial and economic risks, which must be seen in the context of domestic political risks.  There is no correct answer, no preferred perspective. 

Risk is a tricky thing.  It is as beguiling as it is confusing.  As some wise old Persian once observed

If one has to jump a stream and knows how wide it is, he will not jump. If he does not know how wide it is, he will jump, and six times out of ten he will make it.

 The trick is in knowing whether or not you really do know…or not.

I recently had the opportunity to ask this question to a group of serving UK military personnel. It cropped up in relation to an intriguing query raised by Ole Jørgen Maaø in his article: Leadership in Air Operations – In Search of Air Power Leadership:

Air power has often been used to attack societies and structures within societies, often to deter an enemy from pursuing their goal. This requires in-depth analysis of an enemy’s society. Is a fighter pilot best at doing such an analysis? It is hard to believe such a proposition. It could be that different analysts of society, such as political scientists, social anthropologists, sociologists or even psychologists at least ought to be consulted in such an analysis. Maybe a political scientist is better educated and trained to perform this task?

We know from history that commanders with exclusively military backgrounds have not always won the day: Mao Zedong – for example – was a librarian, while his defeated opponent – General Chiang Kai-Shek – was a seasoned military veteran. So in an age where warfare is increasingly fought in alternative theatres outside of the traditional battlefield, a pressing question has become:

Is it right for people with an exclusively military background to lead the armed forces and oversee military operations? (this refers only to leadership of the armed forces, not the state as a whole).

Would an Air Marshal be capable of handling cyber threats such as Stuxnet or would a computer programmer be more appropriate? Would a General be best positioned to ferret out terrorists from an unfriendly population or would a police constable be preferable? Would an Admiral be most suitable to tackle the tangled social, political and economic roots behind marine piracy or would a sociologist be better? At a broader level, Clausewitz asserted that War is the continuation of policy by other means, and many modern analysts believe that political successes are just as important in today’s wars as military ones.

Should we then hand over command of the armed forces to civilians?

‘Yes’ is a tempting answer. But that misses an important piece of the puzzle. The people most able to influence enemy assets and support friendly forces from land, sea and air are almost certainly the people with the most experience in these areas. The same Air Marshal who might struggle to understand the complexities of cyber warfare is still more likely to know about how to destroy an enemy radar post or intercept an enemy fighter squadron than a computer scientist. Removing military leadership from any and all command of the armed forces would be ridiculous.

However, in an age where some say that warfare is becoming ever more complicated, it does seem important to more effectively combine civilian, military and political expertises within our military command structure.

So what then would be the best way to carry this out?

Should wars be waged by committee, with delegates drawn from a sprawling pool of military and civilian specialisms, each one providing bespoke advice and guidance about their area of expertise? It sounds logical in theory, but would be a nightmare to implement. What level of decisions would the body make? How would decisions be made? Who would chair the group? How would arguments be resolved? How would the group respond quickly enough to rapidly moving events? Which specialisms would be included? We have seen before the difficulties of using committees in war, albeit on an international rather than interdisciplinary scale.

Or should we appoint a single leader with a background in politics, the military and civilian trades? Alexander the Great embodies this model. As combined military and political leader, he exploited the structural weaknesses of the Persian Empire by pursuing a path of political decapitation, militarily triumphed against vastly larger armies, and effectively channelled civilian efforts to achieve incredible technological feats (such as coordinating civilian engineers to build a massive causeway during the Siege of Tyre) and to accomplish political goals (such as infusing Greek culture into the rich tapestry of societies he conquered). But this has its problems too. Firstly, finding a person with all of the requisite modern skills would be a Herculean task. But perhaps more importantly, it would create a potentially abusive concentration of power that could lead to military dictatorship or worse.

Should we then try to share command between two or more partners? During the final civil war of the Roman Republic, the military commander Octavian used his political skills to outmanoeuvre his opponent – Mark Anthony – with propaganda, while his close aide Agrippa used his engineering genius to build a navy and his military expertise to defeat Anthony’s forces at Actium. Their partnership worked well, but others have failed. We cannot forget that prior to Actium, Anthony had himself been the military expert who was allied with Octavian, that is until their relationship fragmented and collapsed into civil war. This seems like an unappealing risk for today.

Or would we be better off dividing the two elements entirely, as once proposed by President Obama in his speech about developing a Civilian National Security Force? This once again is flawed – not only would it involve vast expense, but could easily lead to rivalries and gaps in communication and coordination between the two separate entities.

It seems then that there are no easy answers. But the importance of the question remains.

Sadly, no one in the group agreed that I should be the leader of our armed forces. But they did believe that academics should be more involved with the decision making progress. The considered and balanced nature of their response both reflects well upon the sophistication of the UK’s armed forces, and shows how seriously the military itself takes the issue.

Or perhaps they just didn’t want to hurt my feelings.