Nagl on After Words on C-SPAN

Regarding COIN manual. Link on C-SPAN front page right now gets you the video online.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

That was a good Nagl dialogue. Curious that his host was not one of the 'name' media that cover COIN for major and cable news outlets, and that the show has remained essentially unreported.

One item that attracted me was Nagl story of how he had to hunt down police at gunpoint, at first, to force them to participate in joint patrols. That sounded like a Doonesbury story, but it reminded me of Vietnam advisor friends' stories. Candor with humor is good.

Another important point was that by making the manual available for online downloading the DOD decided the benefit of wider public understanding more than offset the education of our enemies. Again, why don't I hear about this from network and cable news 'experts.'

Nagl emphasized that the COIN advisory road was more critical than Special Forces skills and actions. Before TET changed our strategy, advisors were warned about the John Wayne syndrome in which advisors overwhelmed their counterparts with their U.S. talents and undercut Vientamese efforts to find solutions that fit their abilities and inclinations. Even when working level advisors 'got it' the brass did not want to 'hear it' instead of getting an immediate U.S. led tactical success and body counts for promotion and publicity purposes.

The British COIN success in Malaya is a good benchmark, but it may not be a good model. Geography, regional politics/culture, and lack of an active big nation ally for their enemies allowed the British to isolate the theater for pacification. We did not get such an isolation in Vietnam. I think we should examine the lessons of our past and present efforts in Philipipnes and Latin America.

The two reviewers of the new manual that would be most interesting to me would be General Powell and Tariq Aziz.