Comments on: Iraq War Ain’t by the Book

By: silkroad gold

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By: Tibia money

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By: JimmyS

JimmyS — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:56:50 +0000

Check out an article in the Dec. 18 issue of “the New Yorker”; it discusses an interesting new approach to counter-insurgency ops that’s bubbling around in DoD and State, based on a more anthropoligical (i.e. cultural-based, grounded in local knowledge and engagement) approach to the problem, as well as the problem of counter-insurgency in a modern globalized media environment. It also discusses its proponents’ critique of current ops in Iraq and Afghanistan. All-in-all, a very interesting read!!

By: Robot Economist

Robot Economist — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:26:26 +0000

Calm down guys, field manuals are designed to be teaching tools, not hard and fast operational instructions. Ops data is always kept tightly under wraps.
Furthermore, most of the conventional thinking on counterinsurgency is based on theory that has been in the public domain for decades. Even though it would be pretty cool if the government classified my master’s thesis, I think the cat is pretty much out of the bag on that one.
Heck, even if we wanted to classify it, we probably couldn’t since most of the big names in insurgency/COIN aren’t American (think Lawrence, Galula, Calwell, Mao, etc). General Sherman was our only COIN expert and we generally don’t talk about him because he fought dirty.
I went through the FM earlier today and it doesn’t really have anything too critical. It mostly emphasizes the key lessons of COIN: 1) know the local population and don’t treat them like a the enemy, 2) leadership by civilian servants in the field can be very helpful, 3) balance the long-term needs of your troops with the needs of mission and 4) insurgency is a thinking man’s game that is all about communications.
I don’t see how any of that isn’t already apparent to the insurgents.

By: Noah Shachtman

Noah Shachtman — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 17:54:10 +0000

Fixed the link. Sorry ’bout that…
nms

By: BT

BT — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:46:15 +0000

Try this link…
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

By: DB

DB — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 07:31:01 +0000

Link to the pdf is not working for me.

By: PresidenToor

PresidenToor — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:28:18 +0000

Yes because the LA Times and other media outlets should really be talking about field manuals and stuff… during times of war and stuff… Why not leaflet drop the mauals over all of Iraq? I’m sure it’s cheaper.

By: carl corsi

carl corsi — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 23:09:10 +0000

When was it in recent history that an invading army defeated a well organized insurgency?
The Nazis had a policy of killing ten civilians for every German soldier killed by the French, Greek, Polish and other insurgence, but they never defeated the “underground” forces.
Even in the Philipines where the US forces conducted scorched earth tactics — the insurgence in the south were never defeated.

By: BT

BT — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 21:51:17 +0000

It doesn’t matter if the whole US military ever figures out how to fight and win an insurgency if the politicians and the American public aren’t willing to accept such a voluntary endeavor.
Insurgencies last 10–20 years, the American people have no history of tolerating a long campaign like that. I would argue it takes the entire US Government, NGO’s and the American public to win an insurgency. That process takes some real leadership and creativity.
Iraq is not a typical popular insurgency anymore; it’s more like Lebannon or Yugoslavia with external influences, and everyone fighting everyone else, with the US trying to keep some sort of Central Government functioning. If we can’t salvage the whole of Iraq, try to salvage pieces of it.