# Evolution of Attack



## Infanteer (21 Aug 2005)

Interesting piece I ripped from Lightfighter.

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Evolution of attack 
As the insurgency in Iraq shifts its strategy, the U.S. military must become more nimble
John Arquilla
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Article Link

Over the course of the past two years, a loosely organized and largely leaderless resistance movement has managed to stymie all U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. 

Osama bin Laden has exhorted jihadists to infiltrate the country. His ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been a kind of terrorist Johnny Appleseed, sowing seeds of armed uprising. But for the most part, the struggle against American occupation has been synchronized and carried out in the absence of any great, guiding military mind. 

Instead, a very loose network of Iraqis and foreign fighters has formed and repeatedly demonstrated an ability to identify, and when necessary modify, effective strategies against their highly professional American military opponents. The insurgents have done this through coordination rather than command -- sharing information, strategy and tactics widely among their dispersed cells, often by means of the Internet. 

The U.S.-led coalition has found itself pitted against what futurist Howard Rheingold calls a smart mob. A tough one, too. 

It began in August 2003 when, over a period of 10 fateful days, resisters first mounted a wave of attacks all around the country on oil pipelines, electric power generators and water filtration systems. These "stuns of August" were capped by the bombing of the U.N. mission in Baghdad that killed its chief, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and drove most nongovernmental organizations out of Iraq for quite a while. 

These attacks showed considerable strategic sophistication and made it nearly impossible to swiftly restore the country to any kind of normality. 

The inability of coalition forces to prevent such strikes soon led to a deep, growing resentment of the occupation. Opinion polls tell this story: When Baghdad fell to U.S. forces in April 2003, almost half of all Iraqis saw them as liberators. Half a year later -- just two months after the insurgency began in earnest -- only 1 in 6 viewed us this way. By the time of the so-called handover of sovereignty back to the Iraqis on June 28, 2004, the occupiers' favorable rating had fallen to just 2 percent. 

While insurgents continued to focus on Iraq's basic infrastructures -- keeping oil production low, power generation spotty and potable water scarce - - their field strategy expanded in 2004 to include a second major element: concerted attacks on the occupying forces. They realized that it was not enough to make life hard for Iraqis. They also had to weaken popular support among the public in foreign countries for sustaining the occupation of Iraq. 

In this undertaking, insurgents focused on hitting American forces for the most part, given their much greater numbers among the occupiers. 

Deep divisions in the United States over the propriety -- even the legality -- of the war on Iraq implied the possibility that the average American could soon be made to tire of the conflict, forcing President Bush to order a withdrawal. 

This second element of insurgent strategy also proved effective. U.S. forces have suffered more than 1,800 killed and about 14,000 wounded -- some from suicide bombings, but most from homemade explosives. A majority of the American public now thinks that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. 

Al Qaeda affiliates attacked in Madrid in March 2004, driving Spain from the coalition and intimidating several other countries into announcing their intention to withdraw from Iraq. 

The apparent success of this aspect of insurgent strategy has prompted our leaders to strive to "Iraqify" the counterinsurgency as quickly as possible. This is a clear, latter-day echo of the quixotic effort to "Vietnamize" the conflict in Southeast Asia three decades ago. 

Our effort to create an Iraqi military able to stand on its own feet against the insurgent network has a significant chance of faltering -- much as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam did in 1975. Yet the mere possibility that Iraqification might work prompted the insurgents to introduce yet a third element into their strategy: planning attacks on any and all Iraqis who choose to work with the Americans. 

Thus, 2005 has become a year in which the fight against foreign occupiers has morphed, to an increasing extent, into an Iraqi civil war. Right in the midst of our occupation. 

From the beginning, the insurgent network in Iraq has articulated a clever strategy and modified it skillfully during the past two years to adapt to changing conditions. All three of its principal components -- strikes on infrastructure, strikes on U.S. forces and strikes on Iraqis -- are aimed at winning by attrition over time, rather than by a single, decisive victory in pitched battle. 

But war is the most hazardous and uncertain of all human enterprises, and even a great strategy is no guarantee of victory. This is particularly true in Iraq, where U.S. efforts to counter the insurgency may still succeed -- particularly if we jettison those elements of our strategy that don't work and concentrate fully on what does. 

What has not worked for us is the classical military strategy that calls for concentrating huge resources against an enemy's "center of gravity." This way of war may have been right for the duke of Wellington at Waterloo, as well as for Gen. George Patton in Normandy. But it can't succeed against a network that has no "center" to speak of. 

So, when Marine Gen. John Sattler said, after the flattening of the city of Fallujah in November, that U.S. forces had "broken the back of the insurgency," he betrayed our conceptual confusion. For in Iraq, there is no back to break. 

A proper appreciation of this point should lead us to stop seeking to mass our forces. Instead, we should withdraw most of them from Iraq and redistribute the rest in small packets around the country -- just as the insurgents are dispersed in their own cells and nodes. 

In short, we must shift to an attritional strategy that mirrors and at the same time undermines the insurgents' own strategy of attrition. 

Reducing our garrison in Iraq -- as Pentagon officials have indicated they would like to do by spring -- will limit the number of targets for improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers, while improving logistics, field mobility and fire support for those who remain. This will allow us to take and keep the initiative against both the indigenous resistance and the foreign fighters who, until now, have been able to control the tempo of the conflict. 

It means, as I suggested in Insight in March -- and as seems to be confirmed in recent leaks of classified documents -- that a "third way" has been found between abject withdrawal and sticking stubbornly to an increasingly counterproductive course. 

Thus we may stay on in Iraq for some years, but at much lower troop levels. In the political sphere, the withdrawal of very significant numbers of our forces will reassure both the Muslim world and the rest of the international community that we did not come to conquer Iraq. And the return of tens of thousands of our soldiers will shore up morale at home, tamping down some of the bitterness that has arisen in the wake of this unnecessary war. 

Going beyond shifting our military strategy to something nimbler and far more networked, much greater reliance should also be placed on negotiations with the insurgents. This has already been tried successfully with the Shiite community in Iraq -- and has been undertaken very tentatively with the Sunnis -- but should be pursued far more vigorously. 

Even if we make all the right military and political adjustments, however, we should expect the insurgents to add some new wrinkles to their own game plan. After all, they have shown themselves to be very flexible. 

Because our new moves would deal effectively with their strategy of relying on myriad small attacks, my guess is that they would try to shift to planning "spectaculars." Think of the Tet Offensive in 1968, which demonstrated that the communist guerrillas operating in South Vietnam were still a vital force, full of fight. They were defeated tactically, but the very fact that they were able to conduct such an offensive at all undermined support for the war among many Americans. 

The insurgents in Iraq may reason that mounting a Tet-like series of attacks now will have a similar effect. While such an offensive would pose daunting challenges to our forces, it would at the same time afford us, at last, the opportunity to come to grips with large numbers of insurgents. Much as U.S. troops effectively destroyed the Viet Cong (but not the North Vietnamese army) as a fighting force in the aftermath of Tet, the Iraqi insurgents could be devastated if they came into the open to do battle. 

Another kind of major action might take the form of mass hostage-taking, with the insurgents emulating the example of Chechen fighters who, during the past decade, have attacked the Russians by seizing a hospital in Budennovsk, an opera house in Moscow, and a school in Beslan. 

This is just the sort of thing that might appeal to those more inclined toward engaging in acts of pure terrorism, who see in perpetrating such evil the chance to spark a chaotic, climactic war of "all against all" in Iraq. But if we prepare our special mission units ahead of time to respond speedily and skillfully to hostage-taking crises, even this challenge can be mastered. There is also a good chance the vast majority of Iraqis would be so horrified by attempts to engage in such atrocities that support for the insurgency would fracture and slip away. 

Right now, though, even without the specter of either a major new offensive or a wave of hostage-takings of Shiites and Kurds, the outcome of the war hangs in the balance. 

The insurgents' attritional strategy is working, as it steadily wears down support for the occupation among average Americans, putting pressure on our political leaders to withdraw. 

For our part, we have kept far too focused these past two years on conventional, brute-force military solutions. We have played right into insurgents' hands. 

So now we must adjust to fight more nimbly, and strive to erode support for the insurgency by negotiating local truces wherever we can and be ready for a swift change in the insurgents' tactics. If we can cultivate this sort of military suppleness, there is still hope of bringing an equitable peace to Iraq. 

John Arquilla is professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. His views do not represent official Defense Department policy. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com


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## mdh (21 Aug 2005)

> For our part, we have kept far too focused these past two years on conventional, brute-force military solutions. We have played right into insurgents' hands.




Infanteer,

Interesting piece - I think in one of your prior posts you talked about smaller units utilizing new tactics (including mules) and I'm still reminded about Wingate's (not very clubbable in the officer's mess by all acounts by the way   ;D) anti-insurgency strategy in Palestine to protect Jewish settlers when he created small, highly mobile units, the so-called Special Night Squads (made up mostly of Jewish volunteers) which launched offensive raids against suspected Arab guerilla enclaves in 1938. Apparently this was a highly successful approach. Insurgent forces in the area of operations were never completely secure, and could never be certain that a planned attack wouldn't be disrupted and broken up by sudden the appreance of the SNS.(The SNS's also employed collective punishment against any villages thought to have harboured insurgents - which would be a tough sell in today's market.) 

I had been under the impression that US forces were trying to do something similar (at least through SF units) - but this article seems to indicate that they aren't, and that they are still relying on very conventional strategies.

cheers, mdh


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## Kirkhill (22 Aug 2005)

mdh:

Reference Wingate in Palestine - I believe that the SNS tactics were used by Brit forces in Aden as late as 1972  -  I think they were called Keenie-Meenie jobs - a combination of propaganda and people in local attire causing some of the brighter personages in the area to become casualties.  

I thought that I read that prior to the Najaf assaults of  Aug 2004??? that there were some news reports of posters going up around town praising the work of an anti-Sadr organization called Black something or other and taking credit for the deaths of a number of Sadr's lieutenants and followers.  I remember thinking at the time it sounded like the Keenie Meenie ops.  I believe Roy Farran's Winged Dagger describes them.

Memory may be slipping though.


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## mdh (22 Aug 2005)

Kirkhill,

Thanks for the reference to Aden - think you might also be referring to the Dhofar War - of which I know little except that the SAS conducted on-going operations there in support of the Omani Sultan - here's an interesting link http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/CSA.htm that describes the counter-insurgency techniques used there.   

It's clear that there is a very rich literature that deals with the British Army's history of adopting new counter-insurgency tactics and strategies. Some of these - like the SNS and the Dhofar operations - appear to have some potential relevance to Iraq - others such as the Malayan Emergency have less. I will look up the Aden history as well - if you have anything additional I'd like to know the reference.

WRT to the original article posted above - the suggested force reductions and selective use of negotiation, truces - maybe even amnesties - would signal a move away from pure "occupation" to a system of "co-option" which would impact directly on the cultural and political foundations of the insurgency - backed by lethal force when required. 

(This would require a high degree of sophistication and skill in negotiation which - from what I've read in the media and Lightfighter - is not a strong suit of the current US force structure.)

cheers, mdh


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## Kirkhill (22 Aug 2005)

> This would require a high degree of sophistication and skill in negotiation which - from what I've read in the media and Lightfighter - is not a strong suit of the current US force structure.)



This issue goes back, IMHO, opinion to the restricted and limited role definition for infantry "to close with and destroy the enemy".  All arms on the Cold War battlefield, and not just American arms, were geared towards the simple mission of destroying an enemy as clearly defined as Colin Campbell's Thin Red Line.  Destruction of the enemy force is accomplished by Artillery destroying and killing, Cavalry breaking cohesion and pursuing and infanteers clearing and holding the ground vacated.  Arty and Cav had the lead roles.  Infantry was relegated to a supporting, and in the minds of many Cavalry types, irrelevant role.  Infantry seemed to buy into that fallacy and decided that if they wanted to stay relevant they needed to become Cavalry, or at least keep up with the Cavalry.

But the point I keep harping on about is that the infanteer is not an irrelevancy available to clean up after the Cavalry have jaunted throught in grand style.  Infanteers are servants of the state - offering their services to do that which the government asks .... full stop.

As suggested elsewhere the Cold War view of the Infanteer as a one trick pony, an agent of destruction licensed by the Crown, a view reinforced by the citizen armies of World War I And II where training and manpower demands necessitated limiting the skills taught, is incorrect.  The infanteer is an agent of the Crown authorised use their judgement and to destroy as need be in accordance with commands, laws, regulations and guidelines.  That is an incredibly complex task and requires much training.  Some of the complexities can be mellowed by relieving the individual infanteer of the responsibility for making the decision and put the decision in the hands of more competent commanders until they develop the skills themselves.

Traditional, colonial, police armies get this.  

There was nothing wrong with the colonial system.  The colonial powers new how to maintain order, at least the successful ones did.  They developed tools and TTPs that worked.  Those same skills are what are needed today.

The only issue in debate, is the same issue that there has always been - who gives the troops their marching orders?  To what end and to whose benefit?

It is no different than the gun control debate.  Do guns kill people or do people kill people?  With what intent does the killer kill?  Is society or the individual or the collective benefited?

I believe that this is where the American's are running up against it. Their entire society is based around the beliefs that underlie the constitution and some of the strongest defenders of the traditional understanding of that constitution are to be found in the forces.  That constitution is based on the premise that ultimately the individual is a rational, generous, self-interested person and that government in general and foreign government in particular is a bad thing.  They couldn't stand British soldiers on their borders enforcing treaties between the State and the Indians, restricting their movement and being taxed for the privilege.  Not that the treaties and the enforcement and the taxation were necessarily bad things - but that they had no say in either treaty, soldier or tax.

They then spent the next two hundred years either freeing themselves from imperial yokes, in splendid isolation or in glorious causes designed to free others from imperial yokes -  all the while convinced that if people are just given the opportunity to be people the world will be a better place.

Confronted with evidence to the contrary the Americans are going through a period of soul-searching, along with a large chunk of the Western World that also bought into the idea.

It seems likely that when people are allowed to be people utopia does not arise.  Anarchy prevails and bright people can exploit that. 

Back to square one - Peace, Order, Good Governance (Justice) - which comes first and who decides for whose benefit?

PS I'll do a bit more digging on Aden and the Crater campaign.  I have also found some references to Keenie Meenie ops in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising but haven't found a solid link I want to post yet.


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## Kirkhill (22 Aug 2005)

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Worthington_Peter/2005/08/21/pf-1182040.html

This article by Worthington appears germaine to both this discussion and also to the discussion on future army, future Light Infantry.


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## mdh (22 Aug 2005)

> That is an incredibly complex task and requires much training.  Some of the complexities can be mellowed by relieving the individual infanteer of the responsibility for making the decision and put the decision in the hands of more competent commanders until they develop the skills themselves.
> 
> Traditional, colonial, police armies get this.



Well I'm just an inspired amateur here so I want to stay in my lane - but on the other hand I don't have any deeply held preconceptions about what constitutes a purely "infantry role".  So I will raise the first question about these new tactics and strategies - what would this look like in Iraq?

Small four-six man teams operating primely at night? These teams would operate in loose coordination with other teams in the area.  They would be as self-sufficient as possible and stick to lengthy patrol periods - several weeks at a time - moving from village to village - or neighbourhood to neighbourhood in urban areas - with no predictability. They would attain a knowledge of the local terrain to match that of the insurgents.  They would have to have a high degree of negotiating skill and knowledge of local customs, language, religion.  They would wear civilian clothes and use local weapons. They would have only minimal contact with any command authority and constantly improvise based on local conditions. They would be directed to exploit any opportunity that it presented itself. 

Presumably they would have a series of local contacts based on whatever intelligence they could gather and would work with local Iraqi police and civil officials. They would be authorized to co-opt anyone  - whether ex-Baathists, renegade jihadis, corrupt merchants, the local Rotarians - who would help identify insurgent targets. Ambushes, raids and selective assassination would be their stock in trade.  As a rule they would eschew heavy support - either air or artillery - unless ambushed or hopelessly compromised. Or there could be a QRF available to them if they ran into a particularly heavy insurgent concentration.

As Kirkhill noted - this was, broadly speaking, the way imperial colonial forces tended to operate - very loosely with mixed military, police and native auxiliaries - and always on the cheap.

All of this would require a high degree of skill - and I suppose it remains the proper role of SF - but why not extend that mandate to other infantry who might be just as capable if given the proper training and motivation? 

cheers, mdh


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## Infanteer (22 Aug 2005)

Nice work MDH, seems to fall right out of the ideas discussed in the "4th Generation Warfare" thread:

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/32574/post-239205;topicseen#msg239205


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## Kirkhill (22 Aug 2005)

> Inside the SAS, Tony Geraghty, Methuen Publications, 1980
> 
> Chapter III South Arabia , 1964-67: The Lost Cause, pp79-82
> 
> ...



I knew Roy Farran and Palestine were mixed up in this some how - got my references wrong though.

Anyhow the curious points to me are, regardless of the perceived value of the missions,

A - missions of this type, against virtually an identical enemy and in an identical setting to Iraq, were successfully conducted

B - at least some of those missions were conducted by members of conventional infantry battalions - both PWOYR and RAR were basic infantry equipped with FNs and Boots.

C- That the telegraphing of the British departure position spelled doom for the operation - never say when you're leaving, you'll never find friends.

A related tid-bit about Aden, was the clearance of the Crater district by Lt. Col "Mad Mitch" Mitchell of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.  It was very much like the old district of Basra as I understand both locations, old and tight.  The A&SH on foot, together with A squadron Queen's Dragoon Guards in Saladdins (a 6x6 armoured car mounting the same turret and gun as the Cougar), a troop of Royal Engineers, a helicopter and transport from 60th Squadron Royal Corps of Transport assaulted the Crater.  They took it in a night.

The battalion entered to the tune of Moneymusk, and dawn was heralded by the Long Reveille and Hey Johnny Cope followed by the Barren Rocks of Aden.  By that time the district was back in British control.

http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Aden/700.htm
http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Aden/opsstirling.html

Infanteers and Armoured Cars - national servicemen (conscripts), unarmoured, on foot, FNs  and Pipers - no specialized troops there.  Similar troops in the Royal Anglian Regiments and PWOYR were finding volunteers and skills to conduct Keeni-Meeni operations.

Now tell me again how much training, preparation and specialization is necessary.

Cheers.


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## mdh (22 Aug 2005)

> Infanteers and Armoured Cars - national servicemen (conscripts), unarmoured, on foot, FNs  and Pipers - no specialized troops there.  Similar troops in the Royal Anglian Regiments and PWOYR were finding volunteers and skills to conduct Keeni-Meeni operations.
> 
> Now tell me again how much training, preparation and specialization is necessary



Kirkhill,

True - but there's always a danger of overstating their capabilities - and underestimating the difficulties involved. The Brits were largely forced to improvise since imperial and colonial resources were traditionally scarce. (The RAF dropping the odd bomb on Iraqi bedouins is a good example.)  Plus the quality of these units was uneven and the opposition they encountered varied widely from scattered tribal discontent easily suppressed by the local constabulary to all out warfare by highly organized cadres. 

It takes an enormous effort to change entrenched miltary thinking (this board is full of CF examples of how outdated tactical thinking has negatively impacted training - whether it's trenchbreaking or section attacks).  I suspect the US military is no different in this regard.  Not every troopie is going to want to volunteer to dressup in a kafiya and robes and wander around the local bazaar looking for trouble - it takes a special kind of guy to do that stuff. It also requires units with a very high degree of self-confidence. It's one thing to hose down the local jihadi with the .50 cal - it's quite another to sit down and talk to him about the weather.  Some line infantry guys will be capable of it - others will not.

After all - as you pointed out earlier - armies are a reflection of their national culture.  The Brits seems to be more comfortable operating in the environment probably for a whole host of historical and cultural reasons (TE Lawrence casts a long shadow). US forces - according to the 4th Dimension warfare paper whose link is highlighted above (thanks Infanteer) - are less likely to go native and prefer the security of an air conditioned Crusader Castle (copyright to McG). 

Moreover I have a hard time believing that_ someone_ in the US military hasn't tried some of these things already. It's one thing for some middle age guy like me to ramble on about tactics in Iraq whilst safely hidden behind his desktop. There may be very real factors which mitigate against a lighter and more flexible approach - perhaps the more urbanized nature of the insurgency, the collapse of any real support in the Sunni triangle - or even the prospect of it - not to mention even the more mundane problems, ie a lack of Arabic speakers. The sheer complexity of Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions combined with its vast size may make of this stuff interesting speculation but impractical in reality.

cheers, mdh


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## Kirkhill (22 Aug 2005)

> It's one thing for some middle age guy like me to ramble on about tactics in Iraq whilst safely hidden behind his desktop.



You and me both mdh. 

And I agree that it is hard to believe that some of this stuff hasn't been tried or at least considered.  There are an awful lot of people out there who have not only read the same books we have but have actually served in these actions.  (18 in Aden in 1967, 55 in Iraq in 2004?) 

As to the point about national cultures, I agree at the macro level but I am not sure at the personal level.  I don't know that the average Brit recruit is currently much different than the average American or for that matter Canadian.  I do think that the training received, the culture of the force and the culture of the politicians is critical to how troops see themselves and are used.

On your first point about overstating capabilities, I think that is actually the point. These troops didn't have particular skills and kit, the job had to be done with what was available.  Fairly frequently they were successful. Occasionally they weren't.   Dropping bombs wasn't discovered to be particularly useful.    

A main concern of mine is creating a force designed to deal with a very specific foe and then discovering that the foe chooses not to fight on those terms.  That is why I continue to plunk for a generalist force. Not a force that necessary has all the toys, but a force that can give a good account of itself in wide array of actions.

Cheers, Chris.


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## MdB (22 Aug 2005)

mdh said:
			
		

> Small four-six man teams operating primely at night? These teams would operate in loose coordination with other teams in the area.   They would be as self-sufficient as possible and stick to lengthy patrol periods - several weeks at a time - moving from village to village - or neighbourhood to neighbourhood in urban areas - with no predictability. They would attain a knowledge of the local terrain to match that of the insurgents.   They would have to have a high degree of negotiating skill and knowledge of local customs, language, religion.   They would wear civilian clothes and use local weapons. They would have only minimal contact with any command authority and constantly improvise based on local conditions. They would be directed to exploit any opportunity that it presented itself.
> 
> Presumably they would have a series of local contacts based on whatever intelligence they could gather and would work with local Iraqi police and civil officials. They would be authorized to co-opt anyone   - whether ex-Baathists, renegade jihadis, corrupt merchants, the local Rotarians - who would help identify insurgent targets. Ambushes, raids and selective assassination would be their stock in trade.   As a rule they would eschew heavy support - either air or artillery - unless ambushed or hopelessly compromised. Or there could be a QRF available to them if they ran into a particularly heavy insurgent concentration.



This all reminds me of the WWII Jedburghs who helped the French Résistance in occupied France. But instead of counterinsurgency, it was supporting it. I guess this job works both ways, you have to understand insurgency to develop counterinsurgency tactics and the other way around is also true.



			
				mdh said:
			
		

> It takes an enormous effort to change entrenched miltary thinking (this board is full of CF examples of how outdated tactical thinking has negatively impacted training - whether it's trenchbreaking or section attacks).   I suspect the US military is no different in this regard.



This is not particularly scholar literature, but Clancy's Shadow Warriors tell a great deal of what American SF is made of. And he begins with the Jeds. After WWII, with the support of Kennedy, the SF was better developed and was designed to think out of the box, to do what the bigger and rest of the American armed forces couldn't do, as counterinsurgency, counterinsurgency training, guerilla training, among other things.

As for general training and do with what's at hand, I think that the CF are one of the most relevant examples.


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## mdh (23 Aug 2005)

> Quote
> It's one thing for some middle age guy like me to ramble on about tactics in Iraq whilst safely hidden behind his desktop.
> 
> You and me both mdh.



Hey Kirkhill - you're still in play for the reserves - come on back - we can use the manpower and experience, cheers,  ;D


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