Rich,
Great dig, especially this -
In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.
By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.
The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.
The above statement goes directly to the heart of the problem, particularly the boldened part.
In approximately 1965 the book "War of The Flea" was published. I read it in 66 or 67 and never forgot it. It described in detail how we were going to lose in Vietnam and it was right. To understand how it applies today, read about the first 20 - 25 pages to get an understanding of the flea and dog metaphor described in that book. You will find that much of the book here -
books.google.com
Next read the "Starfish and the Spyder". This short and recently published book explains the flea in modern times and terms, but uses the starfish, a creature with no centrally commanded nervous system as the metaphor. I promise this book is absolutely fascinating especially if you are familiar with "War of the Flea".
The Starfish authors explain "flat command structures" using numerous successful contemporary examples including AQ. This book made me want to throw away everything I ever learned from Peter Drucker (in military leadership schools) about hierarchal and pyramidal organisational structures.
Finally, I recommend a book I'm reading now, "The World is Flat". It goes on to explain flat organizations in more detail.
I have often written that history and geography are the two most important things to understand when going to war.
History teaches us one godawful lesson. That being that when going to war, we learn nothing from history. We are getting burned by the same match again and refuse to even consider it a possibility. Those who say this war is not similar to Vietnam are correct in only one respect. The North Vietnamese Army and its terrorist arm the Viet Cong never intended to follow us home, nor did they have the wherewithal to do so. AQ on the other hand is already here and expanding its base.
We are now engaged in the war of the flea and the war of the starfish, and we are using tactics that favor our enemies.
Worse our leaders do not expect to prevail with them. When they tell us this is likely a 30-50 year war, they are admitting they do not know how to win.
At one time we were the world's premier terrorist and insurgent force. George Washington used those tactics to win the war of independence. We never won an important battle in that war but prevailed because we fought like fleas and drove the dog from the battlefield. Today we are the dog and the fleas are trying to do the same to us and so far they are gaining the upper hand. They have yet to win a big battle, yet they already have 1/2 of our congress ready to quit.
Our big box and big gun military is not winning. They cannot bring themselves to admit they are wrong. Their "new" solution is get more guns. Meanwhile we still have the best trained guerrilla and insurgency force in the world. This same force are the foremost experts in counter guerrilla and counter insurgency warfare. Unfortunately they are not being asked to plan the battles nor to advise on battlefield tactics.
US Army Special Forces has 55 years of experience in insurgent warfare. All of our modern successful military insurgent warfare history is in that organization. But as in the past, we got into a war without looking at history. So once again it seems more and more likely history will repeat itself. |
