Safranski on Nagl on Kilcullen

POST: The Kilcullen Doctrine, By Mark Safranski, zenpundit, May 29th, 2009

A very nice post by Zenpundit, my favorite bit being his repeat (from a John Nagl review of Kilcullen's Accidental Guerrilla) that distill's Nagl's distillation of Kilcullen into an "anti-Powell doctrine" when it comes to counter-insurgency (something I would not say fits all interventions but those relevant--in a geographic sense--parts of interventions that involve local insurgencies):

....In direct opposition to the ideas that drove American intervention policy two decades ago, Kilcullen suggests 'the anti -Powell doctrine' for counter-insurgency campaigns.

* First, planners should select the lightest, most indirect and least intrusive form of intervention that will achieve the necessary effect.
* Second, policy-makers should work by, with, and through partnerships with local government administrators, civil society leaders, and local security forces whenever possible.
* Third, whenever possible, civilian agencies are preferable to military intervention forces, local nationals to international forces, and long-term, low-profile engagement to short-term, high-profile intervention.

Ed: Mark links Nagl and Kilkullen to Tom in this graf:

Thomas P.M. Barnett, a friend of this blog, has been articulating a visionary grand strategy since 2004 in a series of books, the latest of which is Great Powers: America and the World After Bush, where he essentially models for the readers how a grand strategy is constructed from historical trajectories and economic currents to make the case. Barnett's themes have a great consilience with most of what COIN advocates would like to see happen, but Dr. Barnett's public example of intellectual proselytizing and briefing to normal people outside of the beltway is even more important. Operational doctrine is not enough. It is untethered. It will float like a balloon in a political wind. It is crisis management without a destination or sufficient justification for expenditure of blood and treasure. If these blanks are not filled in, they will be filled in by others.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

* First, planners should select the lightest, most indirect and least intrusive form of intervention that will achieve the necessary effect.* Second, policy-makers should work by, with, and through partnerships with local government administrators, civil society leaders, and local security forces whenever possible.* Third, whenever possible, civilian agencies are preferable to military intervention forces, local nationals to international forces, and long-term, low-profile engagement to short-term, high-profile intervention.

I heard the same type guidance in a 1967 course for military advisors headed for Vietnam. The teacher was a wounded Special Forces guy who was trying to share his insights. When I got to Vietnam I found most senior advisors there and back up the bureaucratic chain just thought in aspects of tactics, technical and logistics training of Vietnamese counterparts. In any case the SysAdmin efforts of that time was overwhelmed by LBJ massive deployment of Cold War oriented big battle type units to 'win JFK's War.' Advisors lost access to resources and influence with senior Vietnamese counterparts.

The advisors who understood the correct rule set of that time had real war experience in WW II or Korea, or in my generation had dealt with the frequent Cold War brushfires and minor crises. They were considered too 'low key' to deserve the attention of important units and staffs.

The North Vietnamese 'unexpected' TET offensive followed. The US response was to give Vietnamese more modern weapons like combat configured jet trainers, and pull out saying our job was done. There was no response from the bureaucracy when advisors and Vietnamese worker bears indicated there would be difficulty for them to master a new technology without adequate Vietnamese tech data. The English qualified Vietnamese usually did not understand technical Geek English.

The lesson Powell learned was that SysAdmin approach just wasted critical resources, so quick big bang with an exit strategy was the only acceptable answer. Over 20 years my leaders and counterparts usually thought I'd had an interesting experience of little value to the more important DOD concerns.

In 1989 I started to take history courses for a Masters Degree. The civilian program was associated with a campus DOD program to train military folks to work with our embassy staffs. My advisor thought it useful to study the historical material that paralleled my time in service, and later agreed to my inquiry into much earlier historical periods of similar circumstances. The overall staff did not show interest in the SysAdmin type insights of England's earlier globalization experience.

Both the schools I later taught for allowed me to teach students, often younger or retiring military, about my insights on SysAdmin thinking and globalization. But even then, I had to use it as supplement, and maintain the emphasis of the established themes.

So, I was very impressed when I became aware of Dr. Barnett's work, and I'm very happy to see a Gates era crowd adapting to the new rule set.

[zenpundit]

Thanks Tom!

Galrahn has a thoughtful extension on Kilcullen-Nagl-COIN here:

http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-doctrines-without-strategic.html

[Tom Kelley]

While somewhat minimized by the chosen phrasing, that last bit (blanks filled in) is huge.

Minimized here, because merely filling in the blanks, i.e. having and stating the destination/justification, won't cut it.

This was Bush's biggest problem with Iraq. Even bigger than the lack of having a DoEE/SysAdmin Force ready on day one.

Whether one agrees with his destination/justification or not, Bush had "filled in the blanks," but that's about as far as he went. He never made a realistic effort to promote, defend or explain the plan, the process, the justification, the result, or even defend himself or his office.

In a political climate where all is fair in the name of partisan nonsense, just filling in the blanks, even with an unassailable destination and justification, won't prevent others from re-filling in the blanks. It's necessary to sell, explain, promote, "intellectually proselytize," defend, and sell again, to keep others from rewriting the story.

[David Sutton]

I think that the new COIN doctrine, anti –Powell doctrine, DoEE, Sysadmin etc, is a common sense story waiting for its first real victory.

We are soon to witness a fundamental generational change within military circles, it is my fervent hope that many of those soon to be promoted to command position officers, will bring with them an acceptance of the new ideas listed above.

But much of that hinges on a ‘big win’ for these new ideas. Hard to fashion while we have this mix of old and new and I doubt if it will come in the form of a lighting bolt type victory. Instead we will have to hope that the cumulative effect of these new strategies and hopefully their success in places like AF-PAK will initialise the snowball effect that will see even the most hardened and grizzled campaigners asking why we didn’t make these changes sooner.

[Tom Barnett]

Louis,

Your story always keeps getting more interesting.

There is the strange comfort to be found in the previous lack of success: people did try hard and felt a real burden/guilt/frustration on that basis.

Almost every military mentor I've had has been both Catholic and a Vietnam veteran, and what I've found in all of them is sort of the opposite of the lessons that Powell learned--and a profound desire to pass that knowledge along and see it succeed in subsequent generations. Their guidance has had a huge impact on my career. It has sustained me through a lot of doubt-filled periods.

But I do believe America gets the leaders it really needs when it simply cannot afford anything less, and so I remain optimistic--especially about generations following mine.

I've long felt I wrote the trilogy as sort of an extended payback to these mentors--like I had to do it.

And I'm glad I did.