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In his thought-provoking article “Eating soup with a spoon” [AFJ, September], Lt. Col. Gian Gentile argues that our current doctrine on counterinsurgency lacks the fundamental essence of war: fighting. The foundation of this claim rests on two paradoxes that appear in the first chapter of the manual and that he claims establish the theoretical framework for how the rest of the doctrine should be read.

These two paradoxes do and should frame the thinking of the reader, but I disagree that this framework contains the reader; rather, it provides a framework upon which the tactical commander can and should build.

The paradoxes that Gentile references — “tactical successes guarantee nothing” and “the more you protect yourself, the less secure you are” — have both, in my experience serving in a combined arms battalion in Baghdad for the past year, been borne out to be absolutely true. What is interesting is that they are both true for counterinsurgency operations and also for conventional warfare. Narrowing the scope of the application of the paradoxes gives insufficient credit to our tactical commanders and senior leaders in their individual and combined abilities to understand our doctrinal framework and apply it in an ambiguous, complex and lethal environment. After more than a year in western Baghdad, I’ve observed that there still exists — despite the paradoxes — plenty of fight left in our doctrine and in our Army.

In the case of “tactical success guarantees nothing,” the idea is presented that the tactical commander interprets this paradox as “tactics, in and of themselves, just are not that important.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Tactics are the fundamental building blocks of all military action — they are, as defined by doctrine, the employment of units in combat. If they were not important, we would, by extension, have no use for military forces.

The tactical commander and student of our profession who applies the construct of operational design knows that tactical successes must be linked to strategic goals — which, according to the very theorist whom Gentile quotes — are crucial to achieving the desired political outcome. The apparent paradox that “tactical success guarantees nothing” simply means that tactical success may not achieve the outcome our strategic planners and policymakers had envisioned. I believe history clearly bears out that in every war that has produced both a winner and a loser, the losing side has had to accept the fact that its tactics — no matter how effective or successful at any given time — ultimately did not guarantee victory.

The salient point from this paradox is not that tactics mean nothing — it is that tactics must be employed as part of a larger design aimed at achieving strategic goals. Something close to this thought is offered when the article states that the tactical commander “comes away thinking that he has to move beyond tactics, he can’t just focus on raids, he can’t just focus on killing the enemy, because just doing those things and not the other important operations in COIN means he will ultimately fail.” Absolutely, he will most likely fail, but employing “the other important operations in COIN” are still tactical — they are just not kinetic and offensive and about killing. In short, tactics are not merely limited to killing the enemy. What becomes the crux of this argument is how “tactics” are defined or, more precisely, which definition is chosen.

According to FM 1-02, “Operational Terms and Graphics,” there are two similar definitions for the word “tactics” — one provided by the Army, the other by the Defense Department. The Army defines tactics as “The employment of units in combat. It includes the ordered arrangement and maneuver of units in relation to each other, the terrain and the enemy in order to translate potential combat power into victorious battles and engagements.”

This definition is clearly rooted in the era of force-on-force, conventional battle. That does not make it bad, by any stretch — but it is either incomplete or too complete to the point of being restrictive. By being incomplete, I believe that the second half of the definition, beginning with the phrase “It includes,” should continue with the often-assumed extension “but is not limited to.” This logical extension would not limit the thinking, imagination or employment of combat forces by the tactical commander. However, it would allow that commander to build upon the theoretical framework rather than letting the doctrinal definition box him in.

The Defense Department definition is similar, yet less restrictive (because it is less complete) in that the purpose is not related to “victorious battles and engagements” but instead focuses on achieving potential. It defines tactics as “the employment of units in combat, and the ordered arrangement and maneuver of units in relation to each other and/or to the enemy in order to use their full potentialities.” This definition — focusing on potential — does not impose restrictions, either written or assumed, on tactical commanders, but allows them the flexibility to employ their forces to achieve objectives across a full range of possibilities.

The definitions essentially say the same thing, but the choice of the words used in each definition forces the tactical commander to make interpretations about their functionality. The lieutenant and lieutenant colonel who, no matter what the analysis of the environment and enemy situation reveals, come to focus solely on raids and killing the enemy are the officers who subscribe to the definition that tactics must be limited to battles and engagements. These officers have no place in counterinsurgency warfare. Lieutenants and lieutenant colonels who choose to focus on the potential of their unit across a full spectrum of capabilities presume that tactical units are capable of much more than killing the enemy — in fact, they may be capable of “the other important operations in COIN.”

This confusion between the application of these two interpretations of tactics is highlighted by a meeting between opposing commanders in the years following the Vietnam War: the now highly publicized return of Army Col. Harry Summers to Hanoi in 1975. While meeting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, a Col. Tu, he proclaimed, “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.” Tu responded, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

The U.S. may have been better at killing the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, but that didn’t matter — they were not better at employing their forces in a manner that made a difference. Their tactics did not lead to strategic effects — they appeared successful because they were killing the enemy by the bushel — but in truth, they were ineffective because the killing did not lead to achieving strategic aims that resulted in the desired political outcome.

The modern-day Army has taught us that at the tactical level, planning horizons were short. They were short because we applied the restrictive definition of tactics. We planned, trained and employed our forces almost exclusively in battles and engagements. We spent months preparing for National Training Center rotations and drilled our staffs on how to plan more quickly — how to shorten the process to be able to employ our forces in the shortest amount of time possible. In the counterinsurgency in Iraq, that world is gone; our planning horizons, in many cases, extend well beyond a battalion’s time in country. We do not plan battles and engagements, we are forced to plan the employment of our forces across a broader range of options over a longer period of time — we employ tactics across multiple lines of operation. It is not always kinetic, it is not always killing, but it is still tactics.

One of the lines of operation that, when kinetic fighting is most prevalent, tends to draw the most attention is that of “security.” The point of security operations in counterinsurgency, however, is not that they should focus inward — at our own soldiers — but outward toward the populace that we are trying to influence. It is not a matter of where we sit, where we stand or even where we sleep at night, but rather it is about how we employ our forces (remember that phrase, our tactics) and on what or whom they focus. Put simply, the emphasis is on a group of people other than ourselves. In a counterinsurgency, the people are, most often, the objective — much like in conventional operations, terrain or the enemy is the objective.In the example that Gentile provides, it is possible to illustrate an important point about how and where we focus our efforts to achieve a desired outcome. Col. Joshua Chamberlain at the battle of Little Round Top was defending a piece of terrain that protected the entire flank of the Union Army. While he was concerned for the security of his forces, and he placed them on that hill to afford them maximum protection, he understood that his ultimate objective was not the protection of his men, but the protection of the Union Army by way of that decisive piece of terrain. After fighting off several waves of infantrymen from atop the hill, he was faced with the dilemma of how best to deny that terrain to the enemy with limited resources. He chose to leave the hill — and the protection it afforded — to do the only remaining thing that could ultimately protect the Union Army. We all remember the call to “fix bayonets” in the theatrical representation of that battle, just before Chamberlain led his men to charge down the hill to a resounding tactical victory. It was not a dogmatic application of a method — it was a focusing of his combat power at the right time, at the right place, at the right objective, with both his mission and his men in mind.

While serving in western Baghdad, our battalion has, as have many others, simultaneously operated from both the relatively austere combat outposts and the relatively plush forward operating bases, such as Camp Liberty. We have focused, at the right time and place, on the population, while still providing adequate protection for our soldiers. It has been neither dogmatic nor has it resulted in supreme tactical vulnerability. On the contrary, it has, as can be seen all across Baghdad these days, resulted in the tactical defeat of al-Qaida in Iraq, a call from Muqtada al-Sadr to cease direct action against coalition forces, and a period during which total attacks against coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Iraqi civilians have reached a two-year low in Baghdad and across all of Iraq. In the village of Amariyah, where my battalion operates, we have not seen an improvised explosive device or an attack on American soldiers or ISF for nearly three months. This has allowed us to focus our tactics on other lines of operation — the “other important operations in COIN.” This focus has subsequently resulted in economic growth, re-opening scores of local businesses, the formation of a functional local council, and has allowed essential services — headed by the Belidiyah, which is predominately Shiite — to return to the streets of this Sunni-dominated community and begin removing trash and restoring electrical power.

This current state in Amariyah does not mean we have not made mistakes; we have made plenty. Nor does it mean that the use of combat outposts that resulted from the surge of available combat power is the sole reason for this significant decline in enemy actions. There were many other factors in this complex interaction between friendly and enemy forces — such as the employment of local volunteer forces, the establishment of safe neighborhoods, and the effective coordination between conventional and special operating forces — that ultimately worked in concert with the combat outposts to achieve an overwhelming effect on the enemy’s capabilities.

Finally, it does not mean that Gentile made mistakes or did not achieve tactical successes during his tour in western Baghdad — I have seen first-hand the results of many of his successes. What it does mean, however, is that as a battalion — and as an Army — we have learned from both our successes and our failures how to apply our doctrine according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Fighting has not left the ranks of the Army — on the contrary, we have come to realize that fighting encompasses an even greater range of options available to the tactical commander. We have learned that we may fight the enemy not only by killing him, but also by denying him the very comforts of his own protection — the ability to hide amongst the local populace. We fight him with bullets when he presents himself, or we root him out with intelligence derived from our own forces — or, better yet, from intelligence provided by the local populace — and we fight him with services, money and information. In the complexities of winning the peace, these are all necessary tools in fighting counterinsurgency warfare.

We who grew up in the Army knowing Vietnam only from the history books may long for the good old days of force-on-force battles and an enemy who will stand and fight. But the reality is that we have to fight the war we are in. In some cases, to achieve the strategic objectives and the desired political outcome, our tactics must not be “blunt and violent and dirty.”

The fight has not left our doctrine, it has not left our Army, and it has most certainly not left our soldiers — it has simply grown and adapted to the circumstances of our environment. Our tactical commanders and senior leaders have used our doctrine the way it was intended, as a guide for employing U.S. forces under varying, difficult and often nonviolent circumstances in a vague and complex environment.