Interesting comments by the Gunny. I was once a funny Gunny, and a 2ndLt the next day. What I read hear should be basics 101. I found many of the Gunnery Sergeant's comments might be better attributed to mediocre or possibly poor leadership of the units he observed?

Men are only as good as they are lead, trained, and educated by their leaders. I know a little about the Corps' infantry mindset: close with an destroy the enemy.

Perhaps, as I alluded to in my opening paragraph, the leadership wasn't totally behind in instilling much of what the good Gunny states - "equip the man, don't man the equipment!"

Tyrtalos, is right on the mark. This Gunny is intelligent, energetic and an asset to the Corps. I only wonder if the same can be said for his officers? Speaking only for myself, I have always have been a firm believer in the old British Army saying, "There are no bad troops just bad officers”.

Notice how the Gunny speaks english. Officers speak orwellian. Officers only care about promotion. Gunny only cares about his men. Our senior officers resemble the Establishment Party they serve. Our enlisted resemble America. Our brave enlisted deserve real leadership. What McCrystal did to the Tillman family is telling of how much contempt officers have for the enlisted in today's armed forces. He spit in their face. Today's senior officers are a disgrace to this nation.

...and unfortunately, officers often treat NCOs the way my dad did when I was a toddler, and we had "important" guests: don't speak unless you are spoken to...

We couldn't POSSIBLY have an idea of what we are talking about, now could we? Oh, but wait; COIN doctrine is actually BOTTOM up...? Oh... all this time, I was thinking it was top-down - from the guys who aren't out there actually PRACTICING COIN...

What's "worse" than an NCO with insight, experience, and the gumption to stand up for his men like the Gunny, or the ability to eloquate his thoughts? An NCO with an education... Heaven forbid the NCOs might be smarter than the officers.

Camp Pendleton in California is in the process of building several mock Afghan villages and compounds. They are going to be made as realistic as possible. Shipping containers dressed up by Hollywood set designers to look like mud brick homes, mosques, etc. Goats, donkeys, sheep, the whole nine yards. Most important they will be populated during each training exercise with recent Afghan immigrants. It will be much like the mock Iraq at Fort Irwin depicted in the documentary "Full Battle Rattle". It will let Marines get comfortable interacting with the Afghan culture in an environment where mistakes will be learning experiences not deadly mishaps. It seems like the Marines could do far worse than get this guy involved.

While reading this piece, I put myself in the shoes of an Afghan farmer:

I'm going about my goat herding, minding my own business, and 32 heavily-armed (foreign) young men approach. They ask me about my family, my herd, the weather, and then they ask me to be an informer. Betray my family, tribe, or at the very least my fellow countrymen.

If the price were right, some would take this offer. But I think many would feel angry that these young foreigners are interfering with their daily lives. I know I would.

I get pissed off when Jehovah Witnesses' knock on my door and interupt my weekend football watching.

The only thing I disagree with is the conclusion that enough has been said, I could read this gunny for hours. He is spot on and it reads like Kilcullen's 28 Articles.

Having said that, the Gunny is unique amongst the ground pounders of the US military (both Army and Marine infantry). He is completely right when he says the job of the infantry in COIN is to separate the enemy from the population. Too many infantry folks believe their job is to close with and destroy.

Luckily, we are making progress. We have quite a way to go though and this encourages me about the Marine Corps.

Many of the same approaches and techniques we use in the recruiting mission could be effective in the COIN environment.
Just taking the Gunny's example, how we teach a military recruiter to establish rapport and trust with an applicant, a parent, a school official, or local leader, is completely in sync with the appropriate approach of working with the population in COIN (taking into account cultural norms of the area). In a sense, aren't we trying to recruit the young males (and those who influence and support them) away from the insurgents and towards the government?

We can't separate the enemy from the population, which should be evident after eight years of this patrolling and big operations nonsense. U.S. troops are foreign occupiers and are not welcome by the locals, so avoid them. Being polite is helpful, but being invisible is better. Bases should be out of sight of the locals.

U.S. troops should just provide training and logistics, and only come out to fight when the enemy has massed forces for some reason. U.S. troops should just go along with Afghan forces as advisers to ensure they don't rape and loot.

As for the NCO issue, the Marine Corps really needs a single solid three-month NCO school, instead of the several short course offered here and there. It would be required for second term reenlistment, and would include a redo of the three-week infantry course since weapons change and half of Corporals have forgot most of that training from three years ago. And if some lazy or fat body REMF Corporals can't pass the course, they are denied reenlistment.

Ultimately it doesn't matter how troops on the ground behave if there is no clear strategy. By that I mean victory or defeat depends on the strategy not on tactics. It's still obviously a good idea to interact with the locals to gain intel about local threats.

A strategic decision must be made to use troops as escorts for mixed NATO/Afghan reconstruction teams. The NATO element must be civilians, doctors, engineers etc, the Afghan element ethnically compatible with the populace. In Vietnam the government under Diem tended to send middle class Christian Vietnamese who had little in common with the locals to head up districts (at least until the Viet Cong killed them all).

A strategy like that would take a generation and I seriously doubt anyone on the NATO side has the stomach or patience for it. Short termism and a two/four year political cycle along with senior officers looking for a fight to make their reputations tend to make this strategy unlikely.

Other long term goals should include cutting off the supply of funds from the gulf to Pakistani madrassas and reintegrating Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan back to their original homes with whatever funds are needed to set them up. Refugee camps are a fertile recruiting ground for the Taliban.

Plans like that probably draw a great big yawn from military high command, they would prefer to blow things up. Civilian leaders are just looking for an easy way out. So by all means implement COIN principles on the ground but without a long term strategy it won't change the course of the war. But it may save the lives of a lot of troops and locals so no bad thing there.

"Our war in Iraq is now cited as an example of the success of the COIN theory and its methods. In fact nothing of the sort occurred in Iraq. Remember – COIN = political reform + economic development + counter-guerilla operations. We have not brought on political reform in Iraq. What we have done is re-arrange the “players” in such a way that the formerly downtrodden Shia Arabs are now the masters. This has in no way reduced the potential for inter-communal armed struggle. We did not defeat the insurgents in counter guerrilla operations. What we did was bring more troops into the Baghdad area to enforce the separation of the ethno-sectarian communities while at the same time using traditional methods of “divide and conquer” to split off enough insurgents to form an effective force to use against Al-Qa’ida in Iraq and others whom we disapproved of. This is not counterinsurgency!!!"

COIN is a badly flawed instrument of statecraft: Why?

"- The locals ultimately own the country being fought over. If they do not want the “reforms” you desire, they will resist you as we have been resisted in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal’s strategy paper severely criticized Karzai’s government. Will that disapproval harden into a decision to act to find a better government or will we simply undercut Afghan central government and become the actual government?

- Such COIN wars are expensive, long drawn out affairs that are deeply debilitating for the foreign counterinsurgent power. Reserves of money, soldiers and national will are not endless. Ultimately, the body politic of the counterinsurgent foreign power turns against the war and then all that has occurred has been a waste.

- COIN theory is predicated on the ability of the counterinsurgents to change the mentality of the “protected” (read controlled) population. The sad truth is that most people do not want to be deprived of their ancestral ways and will fight to protect them. “Hearts and Minds” is an empty propagandist’s phrase.

- In the end the foreign counterinsurgent is embarked on a war that is not his own war. For him, the COIN war will always be a limited war, fought for a limited time with limited resources. For the insurgent, the war is total war. They have no where to escape to after a tour of duty. The psychological difference is massive.

- For the counterinsurgent the commitment of forces must necessarily be much larger than for the insurgents. The counterinsurgent seeks to protect massive areas, hundreds of built up areas and millions of people. The insurgent can pick his targets. The difference in force requirements is crippling to the counterinsurgents."

Pat Lang

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/12/counterinsurgency-a-much-failed-strategy.html#more

COIN efforts in Afghanistan are doomed to fail. Our generals are too stupid to understand reality. Our brave soldiers will be killed and mutilated in vain for an heroin dealer and his criminal regime.

There is not enough difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Until we remove all our troops from the middle-east and do something to solve our problems at home, our reputation in every country is ruined. If I could afford to go anywhere after the damage the neoconservative war/profit-mongers have done to our economy, I would definitely say I was from Canada. Both Democrats and Republicans have been ripping off the taxpayers, since way before I was born. The thing that worried me about Obama right from the beginning was his warlike and hawkish attitudes. We need to stop giving money to the military, and Obama never talked about that. I invite you to my website devoted to raising awareness on this puritan attack on freedom: http://pltcldscsn.blogspot.com/

From what we are seeing on the ground here in Afghanistan, the Marines are actually doing the best job of any of the Armed Forces at grasping and institutionalizing COIN. We often ask the question, "Why?" How do the Marines take some of the most kinetically-trained warriors in the world, widely known amongst the other services for taking recruits who are permitted the lowest possible ASVAB scores, and turn them into thinking warriors instead of marching automatons?

It turns out that the Marine Corps is an adaptive, learning organization. It turns out that the Marine Corps devolves authority, and the responsibility that drives it, to the lowest possible level. It turns out that the Marine Corps, for all its regimented reputation, builds warriors who are capable of functioning on Commander's Intent and trusted to do so at levels that the Army cannot even fathom.

I never thought that I would envy another service's culture, but I do envy a culture which has produced such results. The Marines, as a group, "get it" to a greater extent than anyone else we've seen. They don't just pay it lip service; they actually try to "do the deal." Their efforts are showing results, and their reputation is growing.

The things Gunny is talking about are actually a combination of basic behaviors, which can be taught, and what other services would consider "taking it to the next level." The Marines are using TCAPF, and they actually perform ASCOPE analysis, while it is a rare Army unit that actually does. Marine officers are more than twice as likely to have read FM 3-24. They are four times as likely to have read Galula or any other books related to COIN theory or history.

It seems that the "dumb" Marines (as such the butt of Army jokes) are actually a lot smarter. It shows in their results.

A key reason why successful COIN actions are not consistently taken among all the forces could be the result of spotty education. It could be a combination of spotty education and a nearly complete void of actual training. Training is practicing. There are no "Task, Conditions, Standards" based ARTEPs or MTPs for COIN-related activities, along with associated collective and individual task crosswalks; the way that the Army conducts training. When brigades and battalions are striving to get a "T" on their external ARTEPs at the NTC, and one of the "Go/No Go" tasks being evaluated is, "Perform An ASCOPE/PMESII Analysis Of An Operational Area," then the train is pulling into the station. Until then, we will continue to have those who "get it" and those who don't, with the difference being a matter of opinion. When a commander who thinks like the esteemed commenter above, "cmeyergo," is fired for inability to properly train his unit for the war that we have going at the moment, then we will begin to progress. Why the Army has not approached this as they have any other doctrinal environment is a mystery. The Marines, on the other hand, have handled the whole thing with a lot more grace and discipline.

My hat's off to them.

Nothing has yet been said about competent translators. Drink all the cups of tea you want with the Afghani villager, but if he can't understand the WORDS-THAT-ARE-COMING-OUT-OF-YOUR-MOUTH, to paraphrase Chris Tucker's shouting attempt to be understood by Jackie Chan in this classic scene in the movie "Rush Hour", and you can't understand his because your Afghan translator doesn't speak the dialect, how does a COIN strategy have any chance of success?

I am amazed that people who can't speak Dari or Pashto and haven't read many books on the region know so much about what the Afghans think. Note: even when you use translators they tell you want they think will make you happy -- they lie. They worry if they call you a dirty foreign pig you might shoot or arrest them.

One problem in the U.S. military is that Generals tell everyone what's going on, and anyone who questions that reality is attacked verbally. The Generals want to fight wars, they want more and more resources and they want to win. Win what? After 8 years it is clear they haven't a clue.

If we put a rifle company in every Afghan village there would be security and they would like that. But we'd need a million troops and need to double taxes. That ain't gonna happen, so the best course is to keep the lid on the violence and minimize costs and casualties and troop levels. But such talk is a career ender. McChyrstal is very excited about moving 18th Airborne Corps HQ to Afghanistan so the number of Generals can double, then they can sit around and play war with blue force trackers.

Gunny's report is another piece of evidence that, after 8 years in country, we the US Military still does not understand Presence Patrols.

For the small unit (co & below), Presence Patrols are recon missions, with all the attendant care and priorities required. It is not an IO mission where you spout the lines IO gave you. You are there to build the human terrain map you need to execute your missions.

It's sad that the US military still cannot accomplish the tactical tasks uniformly well.

http://americanmohist.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-presence-patrols-movements-to.html

Why isn't this great American training junior leaders and NCOs at the COIN Academy in country? Guys like this "get it" and should be rewarded, promoted, and held up as the standard for others to follow. Thanks for sharing this insight with the rest of us!