Cease fire.

Dear Mr. Ricks,

I really enjoy reading your books and your blog. On the issue of light v. heavy infantry, there seems to be at least one clear way to refine this -- get data on the background of commanders in specific districts/areas/whatever in different time periods and map those with data we have on success/failure in those districts. That would tell you, systematically, whether light or heavy infantry did a "better" job in Iraq.

It seems like that approach, even if fraught with its own issues (example: how do you measure success -- for one way to handle this, perhaps geo-plotted SIGACTS III data), could only add to your existing approach.

Otherwise you just end up with a pile of anecdotes that supports one side and a pile of anecdotes that supports the other side. Adding in some systematic analysis would be one more variable (to be clear: not the only one and not decisive without lots of context and anecdotes and other evidence) to help make this judgment.

But if you can get data on the background of commanders in different parts of Iraq across time, you'd have a powerful tool to add to your additional analysis.

Light or heavy? Tread or wheel? Perennials in our Army, endless discussions all proving that 'where you sit is where you stand.' When a tanker argues for COIN or a snake-eater says 'we need more armor – much more,' then you have a story. But this is dog-bites-man. Boring...

Maybe the adaptive versus the dogmatic?

Sir -

I was NOT trying to argue that one "branch" of the Army is better than another. My point was that I think you miss the real thing that separates guys like Patraeus, McMasters, Odierno and MacFarland from the others: they think critically and are able to adapt to the realities of the situation as it changes. THIS is the central characteristic, and it is not exclusively found in the "light infantry" or the Cavalry, etc. The Infantry is full of officers, NCOs and soldiers who have adapted and done great things on the wickedly complex battlefields of today . . . I do not dispute that. However, there have been just as many in Armor and Cavalry units to do the same.

Whenever we start making arguments that imply that only one specific career path or set of experiences is worthwhile, we close ourselves off to getting ideas and input from others whose way of thinking might help to produce a solution that is far better. We should all make it a point to be around people who think differently about the things that we think about . . . this will keep us sharp and force us to challenge our own assumptions and prejudices. Had Donald Rumsfeld been open-minded to the valid criticism of pre-Iraq war planning coming from different places, there might not have been the need for any "gamble" regarding a surge in Iraq.

I’d like to give a boost to Maj. Foster from my own war, Vietnam. Gen. William Westmoreland was an artillery officer early in his career but after World War II became involved with the 82nd Airborne and commanded the 101st Airborne before becoming the commander of MACV. He was known as an innovative officer who cared for his troops. One would think that this is just the kind of leader that a war like Vietnam demanded. Maybe so, but that leader wasn’t him. On the other hand, Creighton Abrams, his successor, was armor through and through. He also turned out to be a much more effective leader than Gen. Westmoreland. I don’t think that the branch in which an officer gains his early experience, so long as it is one of the combat arms, is nearly as important as the mental flexibility, knowledge, and that intangible quality called “leadership” that the officer brings to the table.

It seems no one reads history. The Bible for Armor employment in COIN "Mounted Combat in Vietnam" is on-line:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/vietnam/mounted/index.htm

The Army's problem is their M1 tanks are very poor for COIN. They guzzle too much gas, put out too much heat for infantrymen to follow behind, and the blast from the 120mm main gun is too great.

They really need Vietnam type ACAVs.

The "cranky tankers" have it exactly right. There is no fine line between branches that "get it" and those that don't. Further, branch parochialism cost the Army dearly in the beginning of both our counter-insurgencies and is slowly getting degraded again.

I would also point that the "light" folks have been running Afghanistan since the outset. While many, many factors have led to that mission being underresourced and poorly led, the fact that it has been up until recently only light infantry folks is important. And we haven't been winning with only light guys there.

I would like to back up Chad on this one. The key component, in my experience, is not the branch but rather the leader’s ability to adapt. Those leaders that can recognize the environment in which they are operating and create an innovative plan have success.

I think Tom’s larger point is that it is necessary to get on the ground and talk to the people in an environment like Iraq. Light Infantry, in theory, should be more comfortable doing work on foot but…is a dismounted scout 19D or a Mech Infantry Soldier any less capable if they are off of their vehicle? I would agree that the old 19K cry of “Death before dismount” isn’t the best way to win over the population but the Armor/Cavalry community is more than just M1 Tanks. Don’t forget that the US Cavalry has a long history of conducting counterinsurgency operations. I think “adaptive vs. dogmatic” is a good comparison another one might be leaders who understood Kilcullin’s 10th Article vs. those that didn’t:

“Movement on foot, sleeping in local villages, night patrolling: all these seem more dangerous than they are. They establish links with the locals, who see you as real people they can trust and do business with, not as aliens who descend from an armored box. Driving around in an armored convoy day-tripping like a tourist in hell degrades situational awareness, makes you a target and is ultimately more dangerous.”

Tom,
I think you are in the ballpark with a broad generalization by distinguishing between light and heavy experience as a means to understand differing levels of performance in Iraq/ COIN. Here are some thoughts on refining your analysis - by way of background over 13 years of Army service I've served in light and heavy units as a Field Artillery Fire Support Officer and most recently as an intel officer to SF units in Iraq & AFG 02, 03, 04, 06, 07.

When I look at officers I'm serving with now to determine if they are going to be successful in our current fights, I look at a couple factors that are influenced by light vs. heavy but ultimately it's the breadth of their experience that is the determining factor:

1. What did they learn from their first tours in Iraq or AFG that they readily and honestly share as lessons learned from their own (or units) mistakes. COIN is a humbling environment that requires constant learning and honest self-reflection - officers light or heavy who start from this point tend to be guys I like to leave the wire with. (think Odinero?)

2. Something that seemed particularly true from my vantage point in the Army of 2003-04 was the value of JRTC vs. NTC training for units. JRTC training in that day at least had training events that dealt with a crowded, populated battlefield that could play havoc with a rotating unit who shot first and asked questions later. Like all Army generalizations this has some holes (it's a big organization after all ) - perhaps your 82nd comment fits here. But I observed 82nd ops in Anbar in 03 and 4ID's in Tikrit during the same time frame - neither was a pretty sight - but 82nd's operation and knowledge base of the local environment was more mature (see Odinero comment above - 4ID 2003 was abysmal). I'm not sure this point is as true today because training has changed dramatically over the last six years...BUT it was true of the Iraq OIF 1 and 2 - when the insurgency swelled, largely from our raid first mentality. The JRTC v. NTC distinction is important to understand through the late 90s as the light Army focused on fighting scenarios that had more in common with Iraq 2003 than the heavy Army which was preparing to fight Iraq 1990 all over again. To some extent the reading lists and officer professional education programs in light and heavy units mimicked this focus. I can recall an OPD on the "Battle of Algiers"
prior to a JRTC rotation in 99, while we did Panzer Battles of WWII by Von Mellinthin at 3ID. Each are great for Prof Development, but officers who know HOW to think rather than WHAT to think tend to do better in our current ops.
JRTC did a better job of this for the light community than NTC did prior to OIF 1.

A quick vignette - I briefed a III Corps (heavy Army) senior leader recon on SOF High Value Targeting in early 04- they were scheduled to take over as the CJTF-7 leadership. My brief focused on people/ places who could be influenced - the local terrain - and key leaders from Ba'ath insurgents to Zarqawi to be killed or captured. A couple slides in I got asked by a senior Artillery COL where the "military" targets were in my brief (Mosques, Tribes, politicians and thugs didn't make his cut list) -- such as insurgent ADA sites and communication nodes. His mind was still rolling in the Krasnovian-Mojave desert looking for fixed sites that could systemically be targeted with joint fires...he was simply applying his previous training at the NTC and trying to make it fit into his current environment.

3. Finally, and again something that doesn't always hold, but officers with Bosnia experience in the mid 90s gained some insight on dealing with a local population that has usually helped rather than hindered our efforts in AFG and Iraq. This cuts across both light and heavy units.

So I think there is something to this light-heavy thing, but it certainly is complex and influenced by experience, self-reflection, learning and education. I haven't read your book - but I'll pick it up,

Major S.R.

I think there is a distinction here. If someone is on foot, they feel the war up close and personal. They get the smells, see the civilians in person, and get a real feel for how the war is going. Its the same reason we have commanders so intimately involved in a battle, rather than standing off in safety.

Tankers have it tougher in terms of getting the feel of battle. They are safer because it takes bigger weapons to knock them off, but once those bigger weapons come, they are even more vulnerable then the infantry and don't even know it because they can't get cover.

Competition keeps them both sharp, possibly even more so the tankers, and good communication gives tankers many of the infantry benefits that they miss out on. Because of this, I don't know if we can say if one will produce better leaders. But they will definitely have different perspectives.

This argument against inter-Branch fratricide is right on target. Now we need to elevate it to the inter-Service, inter-Agency, and inter-National levels. Whenever it's Armor vs. Infantry, Army vs. Navy, DOD vs. DOS, or USA vs. EU, the bad guys win.

Let's leave these divisions on the football or softball field where they belong and not carry them into the real world where people's lives hang in the balance

Weird, about a month ago, I tried to raise this point and got little response (thanks Michael C!): http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/11/tales_of_our_time_how_not_to_enter_a_valley_in_afghanistan#comment-82251

Is it a matter of education, training or merely coincidence that these armor officers proved to be successful in counterinsurgency? One would expect the light-infantry types to excel at this task. Perhaps it is because armor officers are required to get out of their comfort zone, sometimes even literally, and step into the lesser-known realm of unconventional warfare, traditionally an infantry domain. It takes an open mind and a flexible approach to fight unconventionally.

And maybe, initially, the light-infantry branch was a bit overconfident and self-righteous, convinced that they could fight these opponents with outdated and heavy-handed tactics.

For sure, the title "light-infantry BCT", would even make George Orwell blush. There's nothing "light" about a formation of soldiers that relies on tac-air or artillery to take out a single sniper, and MRAPs and tactical lift to move around. Of course, there's improvement, but far too slow. Are today's American infantrymen able to outmaneuver their adversaries with sound (common-sense) tactics instead of operating like oversized groups of forward observers?

Adaptive leadership over branch of origin makes sense. Some officers will join the army with that ability. Others will have to learn it. But consider officer career progression before the general officer level. Platoon commanders are typically restricted in the tools at their disposal. A tank platoon can't spare any crewmen for prolonged dismounted work, for example. Companies, depending on attachments, have a little more scope for creative operations, and battalions more yet again and so on. The training experiences at the low levels are similarly diverse. Tankers learn to deal with time, space, communications and logistics very differently from infantry officers, while gunners master effects. Where the ability to adapt becomes apparent is in watching how officers grasp and learn to best manipulate the capabilities of other arms and, today, the capabilities of other government/NGO agencies.

Branch politics just lead to entrenched emotional fist waving, while reducing officers to a sheet of paper listing qualifications and experience (and there's the old saw about Napoleon's mule who went on 17 campaigns, but was still at the end just a mule) is a recipe for mediocrity.

A mechanism recognising and rewarding creativity is required to promote long-term healthy leadership.

I understand your point, but I would suggest to you that during the war as a tanker I felt just as up close and personal as any infantry men out there. We need to look at what is happening in COIN to really understand the differences between Infantry and Armor. First off, all combat arms branches are performing COIN and doing well at it. This being said, it was suggested that maybe we do not need all these different branches. I am attending CGSC right now and one of the courses we are taking is history. I am amazed that history truly does repeat itself. All combat arms branches are needed because the enemy does have a vote in what type of war we will fight.
Light and Mechanized Infantry have one great advantage over Armor and that is the size of the companies, the typical infantry company has about double what and Armor company has.
I have spent time as an enlisted man in the infantry and than chose Armor when I got commissioned. There is a great amount of hard working intelligent men in both branches. What we need to make sure does not happen is that all branches get folded under one umbrella and the distant capabilities that each branch brings to the fight go away like in the past. The one thing the Army fails to learn is that we cannot become so focused on one thing that we forget where we came from. We have learned this lesson in the past and said it would never happen again but we are re-living it as we speak. We are so focused on COIN that we forget the next war is waiting to happen in the future and we are not training for it right now.
The best thing the Army did was the Brigade combat team (BCT) this concept gives expertise in both Armor and Infantry to all commanders at that finger tips and truly gives them the combined arms effect that is needed in all operations we will see in the future being COIN or conventional operations.