Gentile, Not Gentle

LTC Gian Gentile, a good friend of AM, is many things, but gentle is not one of them. In his most recent essay attacking the “newness” and the wisdom of the surge, he starts with a bang:

The U.S. Army’s new strategy in Iraq—launched in February 2007, along with a surge of 25,000 additional American troops—qualifies neither as particularly new nor even as a strategy. Better to call it, instead, an enhanced reliance on tactics and operational concepts previously in use. Or, put less charitably, an over-hyped shift in emphasis that, on the one hand, will not necessarily yield an American victory in Iraq but, on the other, might well leave the United States Army crippled in future wars.

Come on Gian, don't hold back, tell us what you really think!

More seriously, Gentile’s critique boils down to a two-pronged attack:

1. COIN best practices were adopted much earlier and on a much wider scale by the U.S. Army and Marines in Iraq than the standard surginista narrative suggests; and therefore . . .

2. Any success during the surge cannot be attributed primarily to the adoption of these same tactics in 2007.

Gentile is mostly wrong about #1, and partially right about #2.

As evidence for his first claim, Gentile asserts the following:

A record consisting of published articles and anecdotal accounts as well as my own observations during two combat tours in Iraq shows clearly that most U.S. Army units had learned, adapted to, and absorbed the array of techniques and procedures for counterinsurgency at least as far back as mid-2004. When I was in Tikrit as a Brigade Combat Team Executive Officer in mid-2003, my unit was already executing counterinsurgency operations, rebuilding the area’s economic infrastructure, restoring essential services, and establishing governance projects. When I was training my cavalry squadron a year later, we focused nearly exclusively on counterinsurgency. In 2005, the president himself committed the United States to a “clear, hold and build” doctrine in his “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” even as the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command devised a new counterinsurgency doctrine, units at training centers immersed themselves in counterinsurgent tactics and procedures, and company commanders arriving in Iraq rotated through the counterinsurgency school in Taji.

A cursory glance at the U.S. Army’s Military Review, which features articles written by and meant for officers with on-the-ground experience, makes the point. In an article written after a tour with the 1st Cavalry Division in south Baghdad in 2004, Lieutenant Colonel Doug Ollivant notes that his combat battalion quickly adopted the precepts of counterinsurgency, taking its cue from theories detailed by French officer David Galula in his classic 1964 volume Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. In a similar vein, Colonel Ralph O. Baker, a brigade commander in the 1st Armored Division, wrote in Military Review that to be successful during its 2003––2004 deployment in Baghdad, his brigade devoted nearly 70 percent of its time and activities to nontraditional missions such as information operations and other counterinsurgent functions. A recent report from a junior noncommissioned officer currently on his third tour in Baghdad observed that “nothing has changed” in his unit’s operations in the eastern side of the city from his previous two deployments.

There are, to be sure, distinctions to be drawn—though mostly on paper—between pre- and post-surge operations. General George Casey’s (and the White House’s) official strategy was to “stand-up” Iraqi Security Forces; under his successor, General Petraeus, the favored concept tends to be population security. Even during my 2006 tour under General Casey, however, I was never prodded to modify the counterinsurgency operations for which my battalion had trained and which it was executing around the clock in west Baghdad; nor were the units operating alongside mine similarly dissuaded. On the contrary, by providing a baseline of security in our sector, we were assured and encouraged that our counterinsurgency operations furthered the goal of transferring authority to the Iraqi Security Forces. The counterargument—that American forces had settled so comfortably on forward operating bases that they all but quit the country around them—is flatly and directly contradicted by the operational record. My squadron, 8-10 Cavalry, Fourth Infantry Division, conducted close to 3,500 combat patrols and operations during our year in west Baghdad.

The problem with Gentile's story is that it is largely contradicted by the evidence. To be sure, there were some units who “got it” early—Petraeus in 2003-2004 and Chiarelli in 2004-2005 are prominent examples at the Division level, and there were certainly Brigade, Battalion, and Company commanders who “got it” very early at the retail level—but it is simply untrue that, across the force, COIN best practices were employed. A summer 2005 review for General Casey of nearly every U.S. unit in Iraq by Kalev Sepp and COL Bill Hix found that COIN best practices were applied very unevenly. Indeed, it was this conclusion, and the fact that units were not getting adequate training at their home stations and the combat training centers, that led Casey to establish the COIN academy Gentile mentions at Taji in late 2005. This uneven performance was also the impetus for the push to radically rewrite U.S. COIN doctrine, the increased emphasis on COIN in Army and Marine school houses, and the dramatic changes in training at the JRTC, NTC, JMTC, and 29 Palms.

The number one principle in effective COIN is to treat the population as the center of gravity. Dr. iRack knows that, from the very beginning of the war, U.S. forces have handed out plenty of candy, supported endless local reconstruction efforts, conducted information operations, etc. all in an attempt to win Iraqi “hearts and minds.” But these efforts usually proved ineffective because the population was not protected first. Indeed, through mid-2005, most U.S. operations focused on the enemy not securing the population. An unclassified “Irregular Warfare Study” conducted as part of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review process analyzed 127 specific counterinsurgency operations in Iraq from May 2003-May 2005. The study concluded that (a) most operations were raids and sweeps designed to hunt down insurgents (only 6 percent were directed specifically toward creating a secure environment for the Iraqi population); (b) most operations involved large-scale units (divisions and brigades) rather than small units; and (c) most operations (56 percent) lasted one day or less, with most multi-day operations being set-piece assaults on urban areas.

The result was a standard pattern: U.S. units would clear an area and move on, only to see insurgents and militias reinfiltrate the vacated area and resume terrorizing the population. Sometimes the ISF would be left behind in an attempt to “hold” cleared areas, as the 2005 "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" stated; sometimes not. (The campaign plan at the time emphasized "transition" not U.S.-led COIN.) And even when the ISF were present, they were generally not up to the task or, worse, were complicit in the violence. This became particularly evident in the summer of 2006—the very time Gentile was on his second tour—with the failures of Operations Together Forward I and II in Baghdad.

Furthermore, securing the population means living with the population. Yet starting in 2004, most U.S. forces withdrew from Iraqi cities and consolidated onto large FOBs. This was done for force protection reasons. It was also an attempt to lessen the daily presence of U.S. forces on Iraqi streets to reduce the perception of occupation that, according to Generals Abizaid and Casey, drove much of the insurgency. Thus, even as U.S. doctrine, education, and training moved toward a greater understanding of COIN principles in 2005-2006, best practices regarding population security were difficult to implement. In this regard, Gentile’s point that his Battalion conducted 3,500 combat patrols from his FOB in 2006 is interesting but largely non-responsive. His guys, for the most part, did not live with the population 24/7. Period.

Now, Gentile is right that the use of Joint Security Stations (JSSs) and Combat Outposts (COPs) was not the creation of the surge. In the first year of the war, for example, variants were used by the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad, before the 2004 consolidation curtailed that practice. And a number of successful units employed them in 2005-2006—including the Marines in Al Qaim and the 3rd ACR in Tal Afar in the fall of 2005, and the Army and Marines in Ramadi in the summer and fall of 2006. But these were the exceptions not the rule, and they were not widely used in Baghdad in 2004-2006.

Gentile appears to be aware of this, because he has a back-up argument:

The second difference between earlier and current operating methods revolves around the use of combat outposts. In line with earlier operations in Tal Afar and Ramadi, American units have now fanned out and essentially planted themselves in these outposts—abandoned houses, usually—at the center of select Iraqi neighborhoods. Proponents of the surge largely credit the decline in violence to these outposts and to the troops occupying them.

But there is a disconnect between claims and reality that runs through the surge narrative. The two factors overwhelmingly and demonstrably accountable for the diminished violence haven’t depended on the surge at all. The first was the 2006 decision by senior American officers to pay large sums of money to our former enemies to ally themselves with us in the fight against al-Qaeda—a decision that, according to a January 2008 report from U.S. Army headquarters in Iraq, made “significant contributions” to the lowering of violence. The practice began in 2006 in Ramadi, where, tellingly, the resulting decline in attacks predated the surge. The second factor was Muqtada al-Sadr’s decision to stand down, flee to an exile in Iran, and order his forces to suspend attacks against Americans—a decision that top U.S. officers in Iraq praise nearly every day for the ensuing reduction in violence. Absent these twin developments, Americans would still be dying in large numbers.

In other words, Gentile knows that the widespread use of JSSs and COPs to provide 24/7 population security in many of Baghdad’s worst neighborhoods did indeed represent a real shift, but he thinks this change, in and of itself, had no effect.

This brings us to his second major claim: that the surge was largely irrelevant to current security progress. Here, Gentile is both wrong and right. Gentile is wrong that the move to expand JSSs and COPs in Baghdad was unimportant. In many of the capital’s most dangerous neighborhoods, the enhanced number of U.S. troops, a greater commitment by the ISF, and their permanent presence improved local security, allowed forces to “hold” cleared areas, and tamped down sectarian killings. Gentile is right, however, that the decision by many Sunni combatants to switch sides and Sadr’s decision to have JAM stand on the sidelines were the biggest causes of the reduction in violence in 2007. But, even here, the relationship to the surge is more complex than Gentile acknowledges. The Sunni Awakening began in Anbar months before the surge as a consequence of changing Sunni calculations regarding the utility of partnerships with U.S. forces to protect them from AQI atrocities and Shia militias (not just the “bribes” Gentile emphasizes). Nevertheless, although the beginning of the Awakening had little to do with the surge, in some areas, particularly in Baghdad and Diyala, the addition of extra forces and the provision of retail-level population security did facilitate the expansion of the Awakening. Likewise, although Sadr’s decision to freeze JAM activities in August 2007 was largely a reaction to intra-Shia competition, JAM’s deteriorating image, and a desire to achieve better command and control over his militia, it was also partly driven by a desire to avoid a direct confrontation with the more numerous and more present Americans.

In sum, to a limited extent, Gentile has a point—but, as usual, he pushes it too far. The surge may not have been the strategy, but it was a piece of a new strategy that also included efforts to exploit and build upon the changing calculations of Iraqi combatants. And while surge practices may not have been completely new, they weren’t entirely old either. Instead of the extremes represented by surginistas, on the one hand, and the Gentile-style rejectionists, on the other, Dr. iRack sees the application of COIN during the surge period as a culmination and effective aggregation across the force of hard-won lessons from the 2003-2006 period rather than a sea change. This conclusion recognizes the good work done by soldiers and Marines early in the war—including Gentile's troopers—while recognizing that many mistakes were made and that the overall strategy through 2006 was deeply flawed.

In the end, the world needs Gian Gentile. It needs guys with the balls to take on the dominant “narratives,” “frames,” “myths,” etc. that pervade our discussions of Iraq and so many other issues. And it needs guys with the balls to stand up to their own institutions—in this case, the U.S. Army. But having balls does not make one right.