The Army's new manual on counterinsurgency operations (COIN), in many respects, is a superb piece of doctrinal writing. The manual, FM 3-24 "Counterinsurgency," is comparable in breadth, clarity and importance to the 1986 FM 100-5 version of "Operations" which came to be known as "AirLand Battle."

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/09/2786780

Bringing up the issue of cognitive dissonance in the Iraq war is a rough topic. We all knew it when we were there, and the worst part may be the need to accept that there might be no acceptable answer for it.

At the level of the real fight in Iraq - squads and platoons - our leaders know that gunfights contribute little, if anything, toward winning the war. The big picture may very well call for holding your fire in response to an attack. Restraint might be the decision that, down the road, leads to greater assistance and information from the locals, which eventually saves American lives. It might. But that potential benefit will probably come during the next rotation, on the watch of some other unit. What decision is best here and now for that platoon in contact? What response keeps them alive? Which tactics will they choose?

Knowing, preaching, and believing the COIN paradoxes is one thing... practicing is another. And there's a huge difference between a general managing a COIN and a sergeant or lieutenant fighting it. The disconnect between the TOC and the troops has always existed, but COIN fights only seem to make those distinctions sharper and meaner. If COIN techniques can work in Iraq, they'll need to actually be willingly embraced by the guys doing the fighting, and that's a big "if".

Speaking as an infantry PL, I'd honestly bet that my tactical successes (staying on the surviving side of gunfights) were actually strategic failures (damaging to Iraq and Iraqis). I'm certain that my platoon created more insurgents than we killed. I thought so at the time, and I'm just as sure of it now, after a year to reflect on it. I'm also just as sure that I made the right decision to operate at the harsher end of the ROE. Quite bluntly, I put the lives of my men above the war.

Expecting the small number of troops who are doing the vast majority of the fighting to actually embrace COIN tactics would require them to believe not just in the doctrine of how the military can win an insurgency, but in the idea that the greater short-term risks (and casualties) are worth the possible long-term benefits. Even if that PL believes that we have the game plan and enough troops to sustainably fight an insurgency, does he believe that we're selling a good enough product for the Iraqis to actually buy it? Does that squad leader believe the American people will support a decade-long war? Does that platoon sergeant believe it's worth putting his men at greater risk today, so that they might be safer on their next tour?

A COIN manual can lay out the way the military will fight the war we're given, but it can't answer the question of whether it's really worth it. Those are matters of policy, and are decided above the level of the soldier. But the execution of that policy comes down to the sergeant deciding whether his team enters a building with a hand shake or a hand grenade. Unless the nation believes the long fight is worth the cost, and convinces that team leader to believe in it, it won't matter how good the doctrine is.

COIN in Iraq is a tough sell.

ckottler's few but very well-aimed words are not surprising. The surprise is that the many stars in Centcom and the Pentagon obviously did not ask these and many other questions that now seem so obvious. Or did they? COIN in Iraq is a tough sell not because it is Iraq or because it is tough but because General Petraeus is now compelled to fight it long after hearts and minds have been lost.

The aftermath of the 2nd Iraqi War will negatively affect the entire geopolitics and the socio-economy of the Middle East (indeed, in some extended respect, the rest of the world) and the rest of the world will largely blame the US for this. Could it all have been positively different if some civilians had not conferred omniscience on themselves and some generals had not played along? We all wonder and many suspect that the answer is "yes".

FM 3-24 is incomplete (or perhaps too complete) and may be regarded as somewhat academic until young and mid-level officers like ckottler and H.R. McMaster, who have advanced qualifications from the Iraqi University of Hard Knocks and Harrowing Experience, go over it again from a practical viewpoint and simplify it. Perhaps there will one day be a non-partisan, non-witchhunting inquiry (forlorn hope?). Perhaps we shall soon find out if the State Department did prepare a viable plan for running post-war Iraq. Perhaps...

I disagree with the basic conceptual foundation of the article. We treat counterinsurgency as a variant of war not because that is the most effective response, but because we are prisoner to Cold War thinking. John Kennedy defined it as a variant of war when he first committed the United States to it, and we have not been able to transcend that. Is it coincidence that the more we treat counterinsurgency as a form of war, the less effective we are? Compare our strategic success in our four major counterinsurgency efforts--Vietnam, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and Iraq--with the extent to which we treated each as warfighting

I believe that until we do, in fact, transcend the idea that counterinsurgency is a variant of war, we will remain ineffective.

I develop this idea further here.