The evolution of modern warfare: counterinsurgency and military adaptation

Warfare

The More War Changes

War is always the same. And it is always changing. The basic goals of warfare -- to capture territory and resources, to reduce the enemy's ability to fight through whatever means necessary, including the killing off of enemy combatants, to ensure that defeat will be lasting -- have been in place since the very first people began throwing stones at each other tens of thousands of years ago. But the details of each war are so different that both to those fighting each new war and to those observing it, the entire nature of warfare can seem transformed. This paper examines three recent guides to the nature of how warfare has changed over the last generation and what it means in the current political, economic, and military climate for the United States to be enjoyed in combat against its enemies.

The first of these texts is the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual by General David Petraeus and helped to fill a gap that had existed for decades. Looking back, it is hard to imagine why the United States military had not pushed to have such a summary of counterinsurgency tactics and strategy created before given the fact that all of the wars since World War II -- and especially the war in Vietnam -- had been heavily based on counterinsurgency tactics, tactics that had time and again left the United States at a disadvantage.

However, at the time that Petraeus wrote this manual, the tactics that the U.S. military were using, and were recognizing in opposing forces, were outdated at best, essentially based in 19th century rules of warfare in which those rules were at least seemingly more clearcut.

Petraeus, like all educated military leaders, acknowledges that there has always been an insurgency element in warfare just as there has always been something of a blurring of the line between civilian and military. However, this basic acknowledgement did not help the United States when it invaded Iraq in 2003. That war would require an army that was capable of changing and adapting quickly and that would require integration with both foreign forces and foreign civilians in complex ways.

Petraeus based the manual (which was actually a collaborative effort among a number of military experts) on this doctrine of flexibility. That flexibility was based in large measure on decentralized decision-making, a fundamentally radical shift for an institution that defines hierarchy. Part of what both required and permitted that level of decentralization was that military strategy would be based on intelligence gathering. That intelligence gathering, in turn, was based on a concerted and consistent push to understand the culture and power dynamics of the communities where they were fighting.

In the Foreward, Petraus defines what he means by a counterinsurgency doctrine and why, in the face of counterinsurgency pressures in the field, flexibility in leadership and tactics is essential if the U.S. military is to have any chance of making significant progress in any of the conflicts in which it is now engaged and in which it is likely to become engaged over the next decades and indeed for the rest of this century.

Petraeus writes that the kind of counterinsurgency campaign that he believes it is necessary for the U.S. military to be able to engage is requires a "mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations, conducted along multiple lines of operation," a combination that requires service members "employ a mix of both familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies, with the balance between them varying depending on the local situation."

This is not easy. Leaders at all levels must adjust their approach constantly, ensuring that their elements are ready each day to be greeted with a handshake or a hand grenade, to take on missions only infrequently practiced until recent years at our combat training centers, to be nation builders as well as warriors, to help re-establish institutions and local security forces, to assist in the rebuilding of infrastructure and basic services, and to facilitate the establishment of local governance and the rule of law (Petraeus, 2006)

Petraeus is careful not to trivialize the difficulty of such a task, of the dramatic ways in which both the leadership and the ground forces of the Army and Marines must shift from the ways in which they had become accustomed to doing things.

Indeed, the responsibilities of leaders in a counterinsurgency campaign are daunting -- and the discussions in this manual endeavor to alert them to the challenges of such campaigns and to suggest general approaches for grappling with those challenges. Conducting a successful counterinsurgency campaign thus requires a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders. It is our hope that this manual provides the necessary guidelines to succeed in such a campaign, in operations that, inevitably, are exceedingly difficult and complex. Our Soldiers and Marines deserve nothing less. (Petraeus, 2006)

Petraeus also argues in the manual that not only does the maintenance of power require the top leaders to delegate some of that power, but sometimes the most effective way to protect American troops in the field is to relax some of the most obvious forms of protection. Tactics based on the realities of counterinsurgency fighting are replete with at-least seeming contradictions, such as the above. Another one at least as paradoxical and counter to long-standing military practice is that fact that sometimes pushing back against enemy forces is the worst response: Sometimes a show of force simply produces nothing more than a return show of greater force with nothing gained. Sometimes the most effective response is simply to stay put, to stand pat.

One of the most important innovations in the manual is Petraeus's emphasis on the importance of understanding the motivation of the opposition. This is something that has all-too-often been left out of military strategy. One of the casualties of war is that sophisticated understanding of "the enemy" tend to go by the wayside, replaced by simple caricatures and stereotypes. While the psychological power of such stereotypes is certainly formidable, the result is that the U.S. forces have sometimes been left with too little insight into the goals and motivations of those they are fighting.

This lack of insight can be crippling, Petraeus writes, especially in an era in which new forms of counterinsurgency are constantly evolving. He addresses this issue in the first chapter of the manual, arguing that the contemporary political and military environment "features a new kind of globalized insurgency, represented by Al Qaeda." This new kind of counterinsurgency has had an unprecedented success in integrating the local and the global by seeking "to transform the Islamic world and reorder its relationship with the rest of the globe," linking "link disparate conflicts through globalized communications, finances, and technology." Petraeus emphasizes that this strategy is ancient with its combination of subversion, propaganda, and military force, while also emphasizing that the scale on which this can be carried out in today's world, especially because of improved global communications technology.

Petraeus creates a typology of different forms of counterinsurgency that troops as well as military brass can use to help them determine the motivations and potential strategies of their opponents. This was something that had not been done before and that clearly distinguishes this manual from previous U.S. military efforts. Until such a typology was put into place, U.S. officials were often stymied by being unable to distinguish among different types of enemy forces.

Each insurgency is unique, although there may be similarities among them. In all cases, the insurgents' aim is to force political change; any military action is secondary and subordinate, a means to an end.

Few insurgencies fit neatly into any rigid classification. Examining the specific type of insurgency one faces enables commanders and staffs to build a more accurate picture of the insurgents and the thinking behind their overall campaign plan (Petraeus, 2007)

His typology made the following distinctions, urging officer to consider in each case all of the following factors about each insurgency:

Root cause or causes of the insurgency.

Extent to which it enjoys support, both internally and externally.

Bases on which insurgents appeal to the target population.

Insurgents' motivation and depth of commitment.

Likely insurgent weapons and tactics.

Operational environment in which insurgents seek to initiate and develop their campaign. (Petraeus, 2007)

Petraeus's manual focuses on the nuts and bolts of how the armed forces can respond in ways that are in the best interests of the United States as a whole. This includes providing both the best military and the best civilian skills too. Petraeus has the authority, which he has used to great good in this manual, to push for progress and change.

As the world tumbles forward into the second decade of the 21st century, everything about the ways in which war is waged (including the way that the U.S. wins the "hearts and minds" of those in the borderlands of the civilian-military complex) is changing. This will continue to be the case for the foreseeable decades as the United States fights wars that are so far not yet even imagined. If these wars have been fought (as many have suggested) over the presence of the scarce resource of oil, the next wars may be fought over the even more precious resource of water.

Looking not too far into the future, the next wars may be fought over the consequences (the magnitude of which has not been determined) of climate change. As the surface of the world itself changes with rising seawater and increasing disastrous floods, hurricanes, and droughts, the nature of war is likely to change ever more dramatically and ever more quickly. Petraeus has proven to be the kind of military leader who can understand that strength is based on intelligence and flexibility, not a clinging to traditions and -- most importantly -- the fittest military is the one that is concentrating on preparing for the next war, not reliving the glories of the past.

War is Dead. Long Live War

In the introduction to his the Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, Rupert Smith writes that "war no longer exists." but, despite the extreme nature of this statement, Smith is in many ways the least extreme of these three writers. His claim is not, of course, that wars will no longer be fought or that soldiers will no longer die, but rather that there will no longer be the kind of large-scale, heavily industrialized warfare that occurred in World War II.

Indeed, one of the fascinating things about the three books is which war is the reference point for the authors. While the two civilian writers seem to focus most on World War II as the starting point of their arguments, Petraeus seems more likely to reference the Civil War. There is an important reason for this distinction. The Civil War was in important ways the first modern war in terms of technology, the first war that was fought with weapons based on the principles of industrialization with its focus on military technology produced on the assembly line. The Civil War sets the military tone for the wars of the next century and a half.

Bacevich and Smith, on the other hand, are not writing from a military perspective per se (since they are writing commentaries rather than manuals) but from a political and cultural one. Thus while their subject is military, their intent is to write about the larger lens in which war is waged and understood. As such, it makes perfect sense that Bacevich and Smith would choose World War II as their reference point. It was that war in which the ideas of American exceptionalism that serve as the background of both Smith's and Bacevich's narratives take place was forged.

Smith's argument is simple, and hardly innovative. His own former military background (with the British armed forces) feeds into his perspective, for his experience in Bosnia and Northern Ireland were outside of the realm of the traditional large-scale military engagements of World War II. He is personally familiar with the ways in which small-scale forces have come to replace the regiments of previous wars.

What sets his argument apart from that made by the other two writers is his focus on the importance of nuclear war. In this to his reference is to World War II (although also properly to the 1950s with the build-up in nuclear weaponry after World War II as more and more lethal technologies were pushing the fierce arms race of the Cold War). It is not jungle warfare or mountain warfare that has made the goose-stepping ranks of the finely trained army obsolete, he writes, but the constant presence of the threat of nuclear war.

If one's enemy has nuclear weapons, or can convince you that if has nuclear weapons, then very little else matters in terms of planning for war. There is no planning that matters in the face of the neutron bomb, except to have a nuclear bomb oneself and to make sure that all of one's enemies are aware of this fact. In the nuclear age, there can be no traditional war. As a result, all of the wars fought (or at least those that involve world powers) will be essentially proxy wars, although probably smaller than the ones that were fought in the 20th century.

Since armies cannot use their true force any more, because to do so is simply unimaginable, they will engage in low-level warfare with non-state entities. This requires a new paradigm of warfare, he argues, one in which politics is also the first concern. This is similar to what Petraeus writes, of course, in asking officers to examine the nature of the motivation of belligerence. Leaders must identify the narratives of their opponents, and having learned and parsed these, must make appropriate counter moves.

The argument is not without value, but seems overly simplistic. He seems to have overlooked Petraeus's major point, which is that every war is different. Yes, nuclear weaponry changed everything, but that does not mean that those changes set in place the conditions that would obtain in every future war. Nuclear weapons case one sort of shadow over Korea and Vietnam. The shadow that they will cast over future wars cannot yet be imagined. The only way in which such wars can be won -- or, better yet, avoided -- is by remembering that while every war is the same, every war is different.