Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 126

Not the time to bug out on Colombia

By Major Michael L.
Burgoyne, U.S. Army

Best Defense guest
columnist

In this time of fiscal austerity, continued support for
Colombia is both a necessity to allow Colombia to secure its country and an
investment in a valuable partner.

Given recent positive trends, it is easy for some to
erroneously assume that U.S. support to Colombia is no longer required. On October
18, 2012, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian
government initiated formal peace talks in the hope of ending a five decade
internal conflict. Unlike previous efforts however, the FARC finds itself in a
difficult negotiating position. During the last attempted negotiation, the FARC
boasted
some 20,000 fighters and was threatening the capital. After a decade of
successful security policies, the FARC's numbers have been cut in half and the
group has been reduced to guerrilla activities. Colombia's focus on "democratic
security" has facilitated healthy growth in the Colombian economy and
direct foreign investment. Colombian GDP has averaged 4.45 percent
growth, resulting in an increase of $233 billion over the last decade. In
addition, the government has signed free trade agreements with the United
States, the European Union, and Canada. Perhaps most importantly, virtually
every measure of citizen security has improved: kidnappings have declined 89
percent, homicides have been reduced by 49 percent, and there has been a 66
percent reduction in terrorist attacks.

Since the inception of Plan Colombia in 2000, the United
States has supported Colombia with training, equipment, and security
assistance. To date some $9 billion has been focused on supporting
Colombian counter-drug and internal security efforts. Although this support
seems costly, in fact, it is a very small price tag compared to large-scale
deployments to conduct security force assistance and foreign internal defense
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The consistent support for Colombia, however, is now
beginning to dissipate. The 2013 budget from the White House lays
out a 15 percent reduction in military and narcotics aid to Colombia.

When evaluating security cooperation with Colombia, it is
imperative to remember the following key points:

1. The war is not over. Despite the deserved praise of
Colombian and U.S. efforts, the Colombians are still in the fight. Last year,
243 Colombian soldiers were killed and 821 were wounded. The FARC has been cut
in half but still numbers 8,000 combatants. The FARC is also not the only
threat facing Colombia. The National Liberation Army (ELN),
another insurgent group, maintains some 2,000 guerrillas. Most importantly, the
lucrative cocaine trade will not disappear with the FARC. A dedicated effort to
control the growth of criminal bands (BACRIM) will be necessary to prevent
Zeta-like groups from rising from the ashes of Colombian political insurgency.

2. The Colombians initiated an innovative new counterinsurgency
strategy, creating joint task forces specifically designed to destroy the FARC
system. The design methodology and outcomes of this initiative may prove
critical as an example for other partner nations facing criminal groups. This
is a worthwhile effort that the United States is trying to support, but it is
very challenging given current Colombian resources.

3. The U.S. effort through Plan Colombia and the Colombian
Strategic Development Initiative has not necessarily created lasting
institutions that can sustain organizations once U.S. support is removed. For
decades, the Colombian military has been understandably focused on current
combat operations, often at the expense of building institutions. The Colombian
Army's doctrine and education systems, as well as its personnel and logistics
systems, require substantial improvement to ensure that, when budgets shrink
due to continued success against the FARC, the military will retain its hard-won
institutional knowledge.

4. Colombia has been a reliable and extremely valuable
regional security partner. Most recently, Colombia (for the second time)
participated in the multinational operational exercise PANAMAX as the Combined
Forces Land Component Command. They performed exceptionally well, leading a
joint multinational staff and working with their U.S. counterparts. The
Colombian Army is composed of battle hardened veterans with a strong
understanding of U.S. doctrine and systems. Their leaders and soldiers have an unsurpassed
knowledge of counterinsurgency and transnational organized crime groups. They
are arguably the most capable army in the region. Once the Colombian internal
threat is under control it can be expected that the Colombian role as a
regional and global security exporter will increase.

The United States has made a very wise investment in
Colombia. Continued U.S. support will enable Colombia to consolidate control of
the country in the coming years and allow them to take on a broader regional
security role. If the United States drastically cuts support to Colombian security
efforts, this would be akin to spiking the ball on the one yard line and could
delay Colombian consolidation for several years.

Colombia, in many ways, is a test of the light-footprint,
long-duration approach to counterinsurgency. David Galula warns that in the
final phase of a counterinsurgency "the main difficulty is a psychological one
and it originates in the counterinsurgent's own camp. Responsible people will
question why it is necessary to make such an effort at this stage, when
everything seems to be going so well." It remains to be seen if the United States
can display strategic patience and follow through on its investment in
Colombia.

Major Michael L.
Burgoyne, a U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer, currently serves as the Andean
Ridge Desk Officer at U.S. Army South. He holds an M.A. in Security Studies
from Georgetown University and co-authored The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa . The views expressed
in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy
or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S.
Government.

Just some questions about COIN (VIII): Do we really tell them what we do there?

[image error]

By Major Tom Mcilwaine,
Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest
columnist

Question Set Eight -- Do we get to choose if we are involved? This
question strays onto uncomfortable territory, particularly for armies which are
subject to civilian political oversight. Put brutally, we go where we are told
to go.

But do we really
tell politicians the whole truth about what we do -- how hard it is and how
uncertain? Or do we suggest to them an element of control over the process of
warmaking that is not really there? If we were more honest with our political
leaders, might they not realize that going to war should be the very last
resort of politics, not merely another policy choice? And does our current COIN
philosophy help to disguise the very real difficulties that we face in the
current operating environment by suggesting that if we just get the force
ratios right, drink enough tea, and so on, then all will be well? Might it
actually be a bit more complicated and complex than that? Culturally, how does
the military's can-do attitude reinforce this dynamic? We won't say no, and we
won't say it can't be done.

‘More Salvadors, Fewer Vietnams’

That's the title for
a study I'd like to write about the future force structure of the U.S.
military. The military would be relatively small, and it would be told to focus
on having two capabilities: To quickly provide long-term, indirect,
small-footprint support in irregular conflicts, but also to have a cadre force
that could, given time, expand conventional forces. It would be designed to
avoid attempts to fight insurgencies with large
deployments of conventional forces.

Now the thing just
needs to be written.

Remember the war in Iraq?

It's still there -- and may even be merging with Syria's
crisis. Here are headlines yesterday on Aswat
al-Iraq:

Mosque
Imam attacked in Mosul 



One cop killed, 4 wounded in two
attacks in Mosul




Intelligence officer killed west
Mosul




First Lieutenant killed, 2
bodyguards injured west Anbar




8 arms vehicles smuggling to Syria
foiled

Many questions about COIN (VII): The lessons of history can be uncomfortable

By Major Tom Mcilwaine,
Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest columnist

Question Set Seven -- What lessons can we learn from the way
the British administered their empire?

If we accept the
idea that the wars we have been fighting recently are less pure
counterinsurgencies and more wars of imperial aggression or punitive raids writ
large, then what can the ultimate imperial force teach us? The historical
record suggests that it is an uncomfortable lesson. For all its veneer of
civilization and its ability to co-opt local elites, the British Empire was
fundamentally an institution that rested on a contradiction between its stated
domestic values and its overseas actions.

The paper that was
used to cover this divide was military force, and it was tremendously effective
at doing so. Perhaps we need to look at how the British ended the threat of a
violent uprising in the Punjab almost overnight in 1919? I suspect that we might find that the use of force as a blunt
instrument of repression had something to do with it. Or the way that Jock
Burnett-Stuart put down the Moplah revolt in 1921? If we were to do so, we might find a method which
contrasts very significantly from our own, and which achieved far greater
success than is generally acknowledged.

The standard counter
to this is that the British way of empire was the use of very few troops, the
use of local recruits and rule through local governance, and co-opting native
elites (e.g. the Raj). The question is to what extent is this merely our
narrative? And even if this was the British way of empire, shouldn't it
interest us that the British felt no compunction at all about choosing a side
when occupying a country and backing it to the hilt? Do we do this? Torture
doesn't work and is counterproductive; it is certainly, definitively, morally
reprehensible. But have we examined in sufficient depth the utility of violence
within an imperial construct -- put brutally, does torture help keep people
down even if it doesn't provide actionable intelligence? And if so, what does
it say for the practicality of our current and future overseas escapades?

Ike and Obama: Is crisis avoidance the dominant foreign policy trait of both?

I was in a
discussion the other day of the Obama administration's foreign policy. The more
I listened, the more President Obama began to remind me of President
Eisenhower.

There is indeed a
long list of foreign crises pending right now:

getting out of
Afghanistan




Syria




Iran/nukes




Af/Pak




Pakistan vs.
India




China vs. Japan




slow collapse
of North Korea




global warming




European
economic situation




advent of
cyber-warfare

But as I listened
to the discussion, I thought of President Eisenhower, who took office and set
to getting us out of the Korean War, as Obama did with Iraq. He also worked
hard to keep us out of the French war in Vietnam, overriding the Joint Chiefs'
desire to use nukes to help the French. He also rejected pleas of many to
intervene in the Hungarian Revolution. And he had the Suez Crisis, with the
French and British. Then there were issues of Stalin's successors in the Soviet
Union, which was rapidly building its nuclear arsenal.

I suspect that
Obama's dominant impulse is to keep us out of the problems he sees overseas,
just as Ike sought to keep us out of Vietnam and Hungary. Many people disagreed
with his decisions. But he was a successful president.

Tom’s busy week: Facing the nation, NPRing, FPRIng, B&N, and Marshall

Yesterday
I was on Face the Nation yakking about foreign policy and such.

Today
(Monday, for those of you still waking up) I'm on a Baltimore NPR station, WYPR, at noon.

Tuesday
evening I'm speaking about my book at Palantir Corp. in northern
Virginia -- if you work there I bet you can get in.

Thursday
afternoon at 2:00 I am participating in an FPRI symposium on the Vietnam
War, held on
Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It will also be cast all over the web.

Saturday
will find me at 2 pm at the Barnes & Noble at Seven
Corners in
northern Virginia.

And on
Sunday at 3 pm I will be speaking and signing at the George Marshall House in Leesburg, Va.

More questions about COIN (VI): Do we really understand the nature of the fight?

By Major Tom Mcilwaine, Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest columnist

Question Set Six -- Do the historical case
studies that we do use stand up to scrutiny? Again, one question leads us onto
a series of further questions. Those case studies (assuming that they are
relevant, and that we should not in fact be looking to Omdurman instead) -- are
they based on the accepted narrative or on the historical record? Did the
British really rely on the principles of minimum force, winning popular support,
and an adherence to the law? Or did they in fact use torture, exemplary force,
and laws which in essence placed themselves above the law? The emerging
archival evidence on the British approach, particularly in Kenya, is beginning
to show that this might in fact be the case. This is an area which requires
more work because the answer to it may well hold the key to answering
Clausewitz's question -- what is the nature of the struggle in which we are
involved?

Why doesn’t the Army just order its officers to be more creative and adaptive?

Regulations mandating adaptiveness might be as useful as this report
unveiled earlier this month by a couple of Army generals: "Everybody turn left
and be creative."

Seriously, watching today's generals discuss how to improve
leadership development is a little like watching dinosaurs discuss how to
evolve. In bureaucratic terms, reports like this are called "moving deckchairs
on the Titanic" -- that is, lots of fiddling at the margins but very little
grappling with basic issues. For example, there is a lot of talk about mission
command, but no indication that they studied how other organizations
implemented and cultivated it.

This report missed an opportunity. It should have tackled
large issues. For example, two-career marriages are now the norm in American
society, but the Army doesn't recognize that in the way it runs its personnel
system, which seems stuck in the Industrial Age. What kind of signal does that
send about senior service leadership being out-of-touch and/or unable to deal
with today's realities? For that reason, and many others, it is time to move
the Army's approach to people into the Information Age. In the 21st
century it could be much more flexible than it is, offering features like
sabbaticals, maternity breaks, and the ability to return after trying the
private sector. That might keep some of the talent now fleeing.

Nor does there appear to be any reference to how the Army
conducted the last 10 years of war. I guess the Army's leaders think everything
went well. If not, maybe they could start by re-thinking the Army's bizarre rotational
approach to warfare, in which
commanders come and go. (One possibility would be alternating command teams at
the division level and above, doing one year in and one year out for the
duration, with different brigades rotating in below them. Worth thinking
about.)

OK,
Mr. Best Defense, you're so smart, what would you recommend instead? Glad you asked! Here are some thoughts, rooted in
historical research, about what I think the report should have said:

In a peacetime force, which is what the Army is about to
become, you preserve your seedcorn by emphasizing professional military
education. What do militaries do in peacetime? Train and educate. One reason
our senior leaders were better in World War II than in World War I was that
during the interwar period, the military education system was rigorous and
respected. 




But a year in PME cannot be permitted to be the slacker
sort-of sabbatical that it has become in many places. (I'm looking at you, Air War College.) It
should be intellectually rigorous, with an intense reading load and lots of
writing (and re-writing until the paper is of acceptable quality. If you are
not writing clearly, you are not thinking clearly). Admission
should be competitive, and available only to perhaps the top half or top third
of the cohort. Grading should be serious, with no "A"s for effort. There should
be class rankings, released to the class perhaps weekly. At the end of the
year, class rankings from top to bottom should be made public. There probably
also should be a failure rate of at least 5 percent. And all these outcomes
should have consequences for the remainder of an officer's career.




The education should be of such quality that graduates of
staff and war colleges are sought after by senior commanders. They are not
today, under the "no major left behind" program. Having attended CGSC strikes
me as not something that commanders are demanding.




Teaching in PME should be a sought-after prize, not an act
of voluntary career curtailment. There is a reason that Omar Bradley spent the
majority of the interwar period as either a teacher or student in the military
education system. One thing I did like in the powerpoint was on slide 12: "Require
teaching in PME as a prerequisite for LTC and Colonel command." This is
interesting, but it wouldn't be necessary if the smart, ambitious officers knew
that teaching was a reliable route to the top.    




The emphasis in PME should be not on training but on
education, on developing officers capable of critical thinking. This is
essential to prepare people for the unknown.




If you want adaptiveness in people, reward it. Others then
will emulate it. Distinguish between one-time failure and incompetence. Trying
and failing on occasion is an inevitable result of risk-taking. Incompetence,
by contrast, stems from persistent failure -- and paralyzes risk-avoidance.
What you want is prudent risk-taking. Performance, good and bad, should carry
consequences. Accountability will incentivize adaptiveness. Bureaucratic rules
won't.

Chief Red Bull responds to Dempsey: Hey, I got your war poems right here

"There's plenty of good and compelling war-writing out there: poems,
essays, creative non-fiction, short stories, even comic books,"
he says in response to Jason Dempsey's essay on the lack of good poems about our
recent wars. Check it out.