Dudes! Misinterpreting DoD's strategic guidance repeats mistakes, ignores emerging trends, and leads to failure

By Janine Davidson

Best Defense officer of strategic corrections

Much has been made about the Defense department's January
2012 Strategic Guidance documents, (Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership:
Priorities for 21st Century Defense and Defense Budget Priorities and Choices)
and what they do and do not say about stability operations and
counterinsurgency (COIN). Critics have
misinterpreted DoD's decision not to size the future force for large-scale Iraq
or Afghanistan-like stability operations as a rejection of COIN and stability
operations as a key mission-type the military must be ready to conduct. Given America's preponderance of power, it
is understandable that some may wish to plan for a world in which conventional
war is the only type on offer. But
military leaders who misinterpret the document's language as some sort of
permission to throw out the lessons of the last ten years in order to
organize, train, and equip for the types of conventional conflicts everyone
would prefer to fight would be
abrogating their responsibility to prepare the next generation of soldiers,
sailors, airmen, and marines for the types of fights they will surely
face.

The fact is, whether we call it "COIN," "stability
operations," "peacekeeping," or "irregular warfare," such frustrating, complex,
population-centric, and increasingly urban operations
against and among savvy and networked non-state actors are simply a modern
version of an age-old phenomenon. And
they are here to stay. Contrary to what some might wish to believe, DoD's new
guidance document recognizes this reality and directs the military to sustain
competence and learning in this priority
mission area.

Understanding the Guidance

To be fair to the critics, the language on COIN and
stability operations in the guidance is a bit tortured, reflecting both the
very strong sentiment among military leaders that such messy missions are
something to be avoided or prevented if at all possible, as well as the cold
hard reality that the military does not get to choose the types of wars it will
fight or the enemies it will face.

The language that has people so worried is this:

Conduct
Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations: In the aftermath of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States will emphasize non-military means and
military-to-military cooperation to address instability and reduce the demand
for significant U.S. force commitments to stability operations. U.S. forces
will nevertheless be ready to conduct limited counterinsurgency and other
stability operations if required, operating alongside coalition forces wherever
possible. Accordingly, U.S. forces will
retain and continue to refine the lessons learned, expertise, and specialized
capabilities that have been developed over the past ten years of
counterinsurgency and stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, U.S. forces will no longer be sized
to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations. [Italics original to document]

Critics zero in on the italicized line at the end of the
paragraph referring to sizing the forces and infer the military will be "scaling back" or "shunning"
stability operations. Such
misinterpretation reads the line out of context, equates size with competence,
and fails to appreciate how America raises its army and otherwise organizes,
trains, and equips the force.

First of all, this paragraph is in the key section of the
document, entitled "Primary Missions of the U.S. Armed Forces." So obviously the president and the secretary
of Defense view these as key missions for which the force must be
prepared.

Second, not sizing the force for large-scale operations like
Iraq and Afghanistan is a responsible and prudent strategic approach. As these two huge wars wind down, of course
the force will be down-sized. This is what we do after every war, no matter the
type. It would irresponsible, and in
fact unconstitutional, to do otherwise. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States clearly
indicates the power of the Congress to "raise and support Armies..." but to
"provide and maintain a Navy." This
language is deliberate, as the founders did not want to maintain large
expensive standing ground forces in peacetime. The Congress is empowered to appropriate money to expand the force as
needed to fight wars. And that is
exactly what happened during the past decade. Our force planning can and should account for our ability to do this
again when needed.

For operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the army grew from
just over 480,000 soldiers in 2001 to a peak of 570,000 just a couple of years
ago. Likewise, the marine corp grew from
approximately 170,000 to 210,000.
Following redeployment from these wars, the new strategy calls for
downsizing back to about 490,000 soldiers and 182,000 marines by 2017,
(assuming we manage to disengage in Afghanistan) which is slightly larger than the what President George W.
Bush inherited eleven years ago. And
still, it is nearly four to five times the size of the ground forces of any of
our NATO allies.

Third, let's not confuse size with competency. Not sizing for Iraqs or Afghanistans does
not, and should not, mean forgetting how to conduct such missions -- no matter
the size. Learning from this experience and sustaining competency is exactly
what the guidance calls for the military to do: "U.S. forces will retain and
continue to refine the lessons learned, expertise, and specialized capabilities
that have been developed over the past ten years of counterinsurgency and
stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan."

But aside from clear strategic guidance to the military to
organize, train, and equip itself with these missions in mind, there is clear
historical precedent and emerging trends to suggest that failing to plan
accordingly for these missions would be folly.

Avoiding mistakes of the past

Throughout its entire 250-year history, coin, stability
operations, and nation building have been far from an "irregular"
occurrence. The U.S. has conducted such
missions -- on a large scale -- about every 25 years since the Mexican War in the
1840's. U.S. ground troops conducted
nation-building, peace-keeping, and a series of counter-guerilla wars against
American Indians on the western frontier throughout the 1800's. They conducted a bloody counterinsurgency in
the Philippines (1898-1902), a number of "small wars" in the Caribbean
(1930's), and occupation duty after the American Civil War and the two World
Wars. Since the end of the Cold War, the
U.S. has deployed every 18-24 months in response to complex crises of various
size, with the average duration of these endeavors becoming increasingly
protracted.

From the beginning, these missions have been frustrating and
ill-defined, and they have always been controversial. Repeatedly, after each
painful episode, the military has sought to avoid having to do them again by
forgetting its doctrine and failing to plan, leaving the next generation to
re-learn on the fly.

The U.S. army was so fed up with counterinsurgency after its
bloody and protracted experience in the Philippines that it eagerly -- with
the support of the secretary of War -- managed to turn the whole mission set over
to the marines in the early 20th century. While the army focused on "real" war, the marines were sent to the Caribbean for the "Banana Wars," where they had to
re-learn all the hard-learned lessons from old U.S. army manuals that were
being discarded. The marine corps did allow a small team of officers to capture
this Caribbean experience in the 1940 Small
Wars Manual; but the mainstream corps had little appetite for these
missions and was already trying to reinvent itself as specialists in amphibious
operations. Once WW II began, the marines discarded its doctrine, training, and education for small wars in order
to focus intensely on amphibious operations. This left the Vietnam generation to re-invent
relevant doctrine once again.

Although the U.S. military was just as ill-prepared for its
experience in Iraq and Afghanistan as it was for Vietnam, the current
generation was arguably better able to adapt due to the lessons-learned
processes and organizational culture that had evolved in the decades since
Vietnam. Still, adaptation is not the same as
organizational learning, and the aversion to these missions is a powerful
force. Military leaders might be tempted
to assume (or hope) that the past will not be prologue this time around; but
that would be a mistake, again.

The Future Fight and the Force We Need

Today we face a global environment characterized by
transnational criminals, terrorists, insurgents, and myriad illicit and violent
bandits and traffickers. Some of these "bad guys" are aligned with nation
states, but most operate in the gray space between what we consider crime and
war. Importantly, our future enemies
have been paying attention to our struggles against low-tech, high-impact
fighters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and have been sharing their own
"lessons learned" across global social networks. One lesson is clear: Go asymmetric and
"irregular" against the U.S. military, because taking it on head to head
conventionally would be just plain stupid. Tactics such as remotely detonated road-side bombs and suicide bombers
are only the beginning, given the potential proliferation of new and
increasingly less expensive unmanned vehicles, cyber technology, nuclear
materials, and the enhanced ability to mobilize populations via social
media. Demographic trends such as
urbanization, the youth bulge, resource scarcity, and radicalization ensure that
future conflicts requiring ground forces will occur in cities and slums and
among populations, where differentiating friend from foe, and victim from
"combatant," much less just trying to navigate through the crowded urban
"battle space" will continue to plague traditionally-minded and conventionally
trained ground forces.

Fortunately, preparing for these likely future missions is
more about thinking, learning and organizing than about major high-dollar
weapons systems. Yes, we should
continue to invest in unmanned vehicles, Strykers, MRAPs, and other types of
hardware that have proven valuable in these environments. But, just as important is the need to sustain
education and training to ensure future military leaders are well versed in the
latest doctrine on COIN, stability operations, peacekeeping, and mass atrocity
response. Military institutions must
continue to study and revise their doctrine in order to ensure that
capabilities and innovations that enable ground forces to operate in urban
environments among civilian populations and against "irregular" forces are
retained. The Marine Corps' Lioness
program, which places small, specially trained units of women marines among the
population reflects the need to work among diverse populations, while
respecting cultural customs regarding women. Likewise, the army's regional alignment of its force structure will
enhance its ability to engage with real people on the ground when the time comes.
The military should continue to develop special operations and civil affairs
capabilities as key components for security force assistance, conflict
prevention, and crisis response. Army
modularity, which allows ground units to be scaled and tailored for various
operations should continue to be developed, and competencies in foreign
languages, interagency coordination, and human intelligence collection and
analysis should be sustained and enhanced. Nothing in the recent guidance instructs or encourages the services to
stop developing these key capabilities or otherwise abandon them. In fact it instructs the military to
institutionalize these innovations.

Back to the Question
of Size

So how then, do we size this new more enlightened and
capable force to ensure success in future coin or stability operations
missions? With 490,000 soldiers and
182,000 marines on active duty, plus the forces in the selected ready reserve
(560,000 in the army and 39,000 in the marine corps), America's ground forces
will arguably be large enough for stability operations of significant size even
without needing to add to the force once a crisis hits. Still, there is no crystal ball to predict
the exact scenario our military might face. Moreover, despite much debate, there is still no consensus over the
question of how many ground troops are required to bring stability to a country
of a given population. Clearly neither
sizing the peacetime force for the largest imaginable stability operation, nor
down-sizing and hoping we won't face another large-scale mission of this sort,
is no way to plan. Because we have the
demonstrated ability to grow the force and adapt once a war begins, the trick
is to find the right size that allows us to conduct smaller and medium scale
operations and to initiate an operation while scaling up for something larger
if and when needed.

The Budget Priorities document makes this approach pretty
clear:

While the U.S. does
not anticipate engaging in prolonged, large-scale stability operations requiring
a large rotation force in the near-to mid-term, we cannot rule out the
possibility. If such a campaign were to occur, we would respond by mobilizing
the Reserve Component and, overtime, regenerating Active Component end
strength. Additionally, even as troop strength draws down, the Army, Marine
Corps, and U.S. Special Operations Command will preserve expertise in security
force assistance and counterinsurgency training.

But to do this, we need to be confident that we can access
the capable and ready forces we need, when we need them. Being able to grow the force for large-scale
missions if required means having a reserve component that is ready for
mobilization and an active duty-training cadre that can deliver the expertise
on demand. The DoD's plan to, "...
leverage the operational experience and institute a progressive readiness model
in the National Guard and Reserves in order to sustain increased readiness
prior to mobilization," is aiming in the right direction. On the active duty side, the army and marine corps are both planning to retain a greater percentage of mid-grade NCO's and
officers even as they downsize, reflecting their understanding that a slightly
more senior force is not only required in the conduct of these complex missions,
but is also the seed corn needed to train and grow a force if required.

Far from rejecting stab ops and coin or throwing out the
lessons of the past ten years, the secretary's new strategic guidance and
budget priorities clearly reflect the understanding that these missions are not
likely to be avoided. Together, the documents present clear direction to the
uniformed military not to repeat the mistakes of the past by planning for only
the fights some might prefer to face. Such willful misinterpretation of the secretary's guidance would only be
planning to fail.

Janine Davidson  is assistant professor at George Mason University's Graduate
School of Pubic Policy. From 2009-2012, she served as the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Plans, where she oversaw the development of guidance
for military campaign and contingency plans and the review and assessment of
plans. Before all that she was a pilot in the air force.