The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars

1 Framing the Reorientation

1 FRAMING THE REORIENTATION This book assesses the efforts of the U.S. Department of Defense since 2001 to improve the U.S. military’s ability to conduct counterinsurgency and stability operations. It is a topic that raises inevitable definitional and theoretical issues that must be resolved. What is meant by “stability operations,” and how do they differ from “counterinsurgency” campaigns? What do we mean by “learning,” and how does this process apply to an institution as opposed to an individual? What type of innovation would one expect as part of a reorientation toward counterinsurgency and stability operations? And, perhaps most fundamentally, why are these types of missions so important, today and in the future? THE NATURE OF THE MISSION To understand the U.S. military’s reorientation toward counterinsurgency and stability operations, it is necessary to understand the types of missions that lie at the heart of the learning process. What is meant by “stability operations ,” by “counterinsurgency,” how do they differ from one another, and what, specifically, distinguishes these types of operations from the conventional combat campaigns with which the U.S. military is more familiar? As definitions can often obscure more than they reveal, it may suffice to group the operations of concern to this book not by what they are called but by the characteristics that they share. In so doing, the operations of key import are those that share three specific attributes: (1) A medium-to-high level of hostile activity targeting the “stabilizing” forces, whether foreign or local; this is also known as a nonpermissive operational environment. (2) An underlying state-building initiative, of which the military stabilization effort is but a subset. State-building is here loosely understood 9 as primarily nonmilitary assistance in the creation or reinforcement of state structures, culminating in the formation of a government that is, at the very least, able to maintain stability in the territory under its jurisdiction. (3) The deployment of ground troops to conduct operations in the midst of a local civilian population. It is when these three characteristics have coexisted within one area of operation that the U.S. armed forces have struggled to achieve its desired results. Andrew Krepinevich captures the conundrum: “The emphasis is on light infantry formations, not heavy divisions; on firepower restraint, not its widespread application; on the resolution of political and social problems within the nation targeted by insurgents, not closing with and destroying the insurgent’s field forces.”1 Missions that share these characteristics are commonly called either “counterinsurgency campaigns” or “stability operations.” Although the terms are not entirely interchangeable, these types of campaigns clearly overlap, as both comprise simultaneous military, political, and economic efforts to help a government stabilize and consolidate order in its own territory.2 Efforts to learn counterinsurgency are thus often relevant, if not entirely congruent , to those relating to stability operations. Aside from their respective connotations, the one true variable separating these two types of operations is the level and organization of armed opposition facing the stabilizing forces. But as it is often armed opposition that forces the military to engage in the first place, the difference between stability operations and counterinsurgency campaigns is often not very pronounced, if at all extant.3 However termed, a narrow understanding of the operations under scrutiny, based on the three above attributes, allows for appropriate and insightful historical parallels. The focus is not on the conventional phase of war, though it should be said that delineations between the conflict and postconflict phase are often all-too crude.4 Peacekeeping and peace-building operations also form inappropriate bases of comparison; whereas peace operations are often consensual in nature, stabilizing forces actively seek to bolster one party at the expense of another—there is no pretense of neutrality . Counterterrorism operations are similarly beyond the remit, as they do not necessarily involve the creation of a new political order or the sustained presence of ground troops. Furthermore, in DoD jargon, counterterrorism is commonly interpreted as predominantly “enemy-centered,” that is, “aimed at dissuading, deterring, and defeating adversaries, principally through kinetic means [combat].”5 In contrast, counterinsurgency and stability operations are, in theory at any rate, “population-centered,” that is, “aimed at assuring, persuading, and influencing indigenous populations 10 Chapter 1 through the provision of security, humanitarian assistance, basic services, infrastructure , institution-building, support for the rule of law.”6 This distinction makes these two types of operations...