In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, Colonel Gian Gentile has written another article promoting Iraq and Afghanistan as exemplars of why “nation-building at gunpoint” (read : counterinsurgency or “COIN”) does not produce a “better state of peace”, the object of war as elucidated by B.H. Liddell Hart.* The article highlights the high cost in lives and money and the poor return on those investment in both countries: specifically, that neither place is stable and it is unlikely that they will become so in the foreseeable future. Gentile continues a familiar line of attack against the narrative of the “savior general” – specifically, the notion that General David Petraeus’ leadership turned the tide of the Iraq war – and the application of COIN tactics in the absence of a proper strategy.
Gentile has been an important voice over the years challenging conventional wisdom. But his attack on a specific operational concept misses the fundamental reason that counterinsurgency has failed to achieve its intended results.
I accept his criticism of the “savior general” trope — with the caveat that leadership still matters and some generals are more effective than others. Iraq is an excellent example, because General Petraeus’ predecessors failed to enforce unity of command and effort. General George Casey did oversee COIN operations in Iraq, but did not effectively incorporate special operations forces, civilian assets, or even a theater-wide operational plan. Petraeus’ successes had less to do with implementing the COIN doctrine set in Army Field Manual 3-24 than with his ability to abide by the principles of war. Petraeus wasn’t a savior; he was simply a more effective commander.
But the bigger issue, aside from leadership, is that Gentile is aiming his fury at the wrong target when he grinds his ax with population-centric counterinsurgency. His quip that COIN is a strategy of tactics is partially true, inasmuch as all strategies are composed at least in part by tactics. In the “ends, ways, means” construct of strategy, “ways” consist primarily (but not exclusively) of tactics. Given how COIN was evangelized throughout Department of Defense beginning in 2007, it is conceivable that ways dominated ends in the strategic calculus that determined how America would fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, this is not an inherent flaw of counterinsurgency; rather, it is a flaw in how we devised our strategy.
It should go without saying (but obviously it must be said) that ends should drive ways and means, and in turn, strategic ends should support stated policy objectives. You must know what you want to achieve before determining how you’ll get it done and with what assets. But this is where our strategy development went off the rails. The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan mission statement provides an excellent example of the problem:
In support of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, ISAF conducts operations in Afghanistan to reduce the capability and will of the insurgency, support the growth in capacity and capability of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and facilitate improvements in governance and socio-economic development in order to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population.
In military mission statements, the objective (or end) is found after the “in order to” clause. In other words, ISAF’s objective is to “provide a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population.” If we ignore the nonsensical qualification of “observable to the people,” we see that ISAF does not intend to create sustainable stability, an objective the American people desire as a palpable indicator of the value of our sacrifices. However, the American government merely intends to create the secure environment that allows that sustainable stability to exist, putting the truly preferred objective in the hands of a party to which the United States has limited control, i.e., the host government. In other words, we’ve succeeded if we create the conditions that permit the Afghan government to take advantage of but only succeed in the eyes of the American people if the Afghan government takes said advantage. We don’t care to create a better state of peace, to borrow Hart’s phrase – it’s sufficient to create a better war (one that we don’t have to fight). As violence in Iraq continues to escalate, it becomes apparent that even when we do attain the conditions we seek, it sure doesn’t feel like we’ve won the war if the host nation cannot seal the deal. The problem is not with our ways, but with our ends.
That’s how COIN fits into all this. COIN provides the ways to create this desired “secure environment.” Still, it is ultimately a military solution to a political problem. To feel that we’ve won these wars (e.g., measurable, sustainable stability) requires a significant political line of operations, beyond the establishment of governance structures. And yet, with a handful of short-term exceptions, we have failed to establish those structures. The United States has viewed these wars as military problems – they are wars, after all. But a military tool cannot solve a purely political problem, which is what we’re left with once we’ve created the breathing room for a political process. That’s why it appears that COIN has failed.
So no, contrary to Gentile’s argument, Iraq and Afghanistan have not proven that “nation-building at gunpoint” does not work or that COIN is ineffective. There are a number of cases to prove the contrary, including Kosovo, Malaya, and other colonial wars. These wars have only proven that we need to improve how we develop strategy and that we cannot achieve political goals with military tools alone if the political objective exceeds merely military objectives. That the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan – which heavily relied on COIN – failed does not invalidate COIN as an operational concept. Rather it invalidates the use of COIN to solve problems that cannot be solved with COIN. This conclusion might be self-evident or even tautological, but it has been missed or ignored by policymakers and senior military leaders in the last decade.
So let’s not yet sign the death certificate for COIN because it didn’t work in these cases. COIN and its tenets may be useful in future conflicts. Rather, let us better understand what we want to achieve in our wars and how to go about achieving that. I don’t know if any wars can be truly “satisfying”, but if we do this better, future wars will certainly be more satisfying than Iraq or Afghanistan.
*For more on Gentile’s writing, see this review of his book by guest contributor Crispin Burke.
Jason Fritz is a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks.
Tim 
Tom Quiggin 
Jason Fritz 
Max Kelly 
Bill 
Nils Gilman 
juris imprudent 
Athena's High Priestess 
Part of the problem I see was summed up in a picture of a white board in Iraq. “Marines are at war, America is at the mall”
Jason: An excellent article and enjoyed reading it – especially the bits about strategy and tactics.
With respect to COIN in Afghanistan, the war was lost as soon as it was begun. Basic COIN strategy learned over and over again in various wars stipulates that the outside or intervening power (USA/ISAF) must put their support behind a local leader. The local leader must be held in some esteem by the local population if the nation-building efforts are going to work.
The USA chose to install President Karzai and then tried to make it work, rather than trying to find a local leader with some credibility. Karzai is more of an outsider than a local and lacked even the most basic credibility with most of the population. That was before years of corruption. The saying that you can drive a square peg into a round hole if you have a big enough hammer makes may not work out so well on the ground where political reality actually matters.
All too often, the strategy is disconnected from the actual operations and tactics. The politicians at the White House and in the E Ring may have liked Karzai, but he was a singularly poor choice. My own guess is that he will wind up next to Najibullah.
As Kurt Vonnegut would have said: So it goes….
Tom, you’re absolutely right. And that plays into the question of the efficacy of third party COIN – it’s pretty apparent that the likelihood of success decreases if you’re not on the same page as the government you’re trying to support. More on that next week…
In short, counterinsurgency operations are only as good as the political strategy they support.
I’m going to ask you to write the exec summary of my posts from here on out. Because, yes.
I commented on your article on the Small Wars Journal. Overall very good, but disagree with your assertion that nation-building was effective or instrumental in either Malaya or Kosovo.
Bill, I might give you Malaya (per your comment at SWJ), but I’ll stick to Kosovo. If you can stand by for a week, I’m going to address the issue of third-party nation building next week. As you say, the efficacy of such attempts are highly debatable and I’m surely not saying that they work.
My inclination now is to say that there are too many variables to say either way definitively. Does it fit with the strategy? How much building do you need to do and in what sectors? What is the security situation (post-conflict? during conflict? somewhere in between?)? What is the political situation in the country and does the third party have non-violent leverage over it? Does this very expensive endeavor contribute to the interests or security of the third part? And these are just a few off the cuff.
Jason is right on this one, and the key question is in defining ‘nation building’. Bill – if your critique is of the application of large-scale economic/infrastructure programs designed and implemented around the development goal of improving economic conditions, then it is well-founded. On the other hand, carefully targeted economic/infrastructure programs that are guided by a political logic and carefully synched with lethal ops to support a COIN narrative can be effective. I’ll leave it to Jason to defend the Kosovo case, but ask Dave Maxwell about the impact of the Philippino Army’s recent re-opening of a major market access road on Mindinao in terms of undercutting the MILF’s control of rural farming communities. And to address some of the examples you cite in your SWJ post, if Somalia is doing better, it’s because of the efforts of AMISOM over the last 5 years or so (an international stabilization operation currently standing around 17,000 troops). In DR Congo, what ‘nation building’ has taken place has primarily been through development institutions like the World Bank (and thus not aligned to a politico-military strategy). That said, the gradual opening of transportation routes linking the capital to the east at least creates the possibility of economically and politically integrating the country. As for other examples, I’d point to the improved services that the Omani Sultanate extended to communities that created firqats during the counterinsurgency (and the policing/governance role the firqat members were given following the conflict), and (from the other side of COIN) the role of social services in building the legitimacy of Hezbollah and Hamas in their respective societies. Bottom line – politics, security, and economics are interdependent, and treating them as separate LOE is what gets us into trouble.
Looking forward to additional insights when Jason returns. Max I have been to the Southern Philippines many times and I’m aware of about three development projects that had a significant impact on the security situation (at least for a few months), so development done smartly based on understanding and consensus from the locals on what is important, especially at the micro and small level can have an impact. However, as you know we are in a FID role assisting the Philippine Government with its internal defense and development plan, which is a far cry from the way we’re operating in Afghanistan. Admittely I have harsh comments on SWJ repeatedly on SWJ about the theory that development as the main effort to defeat an insurgency is deeply flawed. I’m attempting to draw out those willing to support that view with facts instead of assumptions based on a hypothesis. Jason and you are actually the first that have responded in a way that is logical. It is important we understand what works and what doesn’t, and that means those on both sides of the issue need to open their minds and honestly debate this. Thanks for your response.
It’s worse than just that COIN operations are only as good as the political strategy they support. Rather, neo-COIN was *designed* to provide political cover in Washington for the fact that the political strategies of the war were unachievable. That is the real sin of the turn to COIN, not that it was operationally ineffective, but rather that it delayed a reckoning with the failure of political strategy and vision, while American troops and locals continued to bleed in the field…
I agree with Nils – COIN operations are tactics adapted to a fundamentally flawed strategy. There is a reason this was not a DoD doctrinal operation until field exigency demanded it. That isn’t the fault of the military – it is the fault of the politicians who put the military in a no-win scenario. I was taught that using the wrong tool for a job usually produces a substandard result and often damages the tool in the process.
I look forward to hearing how Kosovo is a demonstration of success. It will certainly be a novel argument.
Counterinsurgencies fail. In any honest accounting, there are only a handful of successful COINs in the history of the world, and even those are dubious. If you are fighting for your national objectives by means of counterinsurgency, then as the old demotivational posters say, you’re doing it wrong. What part of batting near zero do you not understand? It seems everyone and everything is to blame but the very principle itself. Always an excuse. And why? Because COIN appeals to the type of people we as Americans have become: Soft, gentle, compassion-caring, and weak-minded.