THE DILEMMA OF CONVENTIONAL TROOPS IN AN UNCONVENTIONAL WAR
Iraq Was NOT the War on Terrorism
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I’d like to introduce readers to a new word (well, not really new, but you won’t find it in your daily newspapers). It’s MOOTW Link. No, it’s not a mouthwash, just an acronym for Military Operations Other Than War. The trouble with military doctrines is well, just that. It’s a doctrine, you know – dogma. It’s not the answer per se to say, guerilla attacks carried out by stateless terrorists. One always has to take doctrines in the context of one’s present situation. MOOTW was an attempt to summarize the experiences in an earlier war where a superior conventional force (that’s US) was , yes, defeated by a technologically inferior force using unconventional warfare. Yes, the Kissinger-led treaty signing ceremonies were just really face-saving for a graceful exit of our troops. Now, we have a déjà vu in our hands with some differences: (1) the conflict isn’t confined to one geographical area or region (like Vietnam); it’s actually borderless. (2) There are no visible conventional enemy troops( unlike the standing armies of North Vietnam), making estimates of enemy strength difficult.(3) The enemy derives strength from ideological collusion using a world religion that has spread itself in many parts of the globe. I was going to cite the use of suicide bombers to exemplify a fourth difference but it isn’t really that unique having known kamikaze Japanese flight bombers from WWII. Besides sending our own conventional troops to insurgent-infested Iraq is equivalent to our own version of suicide fighters. Would you still use ,say , experiences in Okinawa or Battle of the Bulge in dealing with such an enemy ? How could we say then that Iraq was the central part of our War on Terrorism ? Well, after the attack, we may have already made it that way to the great disadvantage of our forces. Currently, terrorist cells from within Pakistan are able to feed jihadist fighters back into the Afghan borders to open a renewed front while engaging our conventional forces in Iraq.
The disadvantage is of course obvious even to non-military people. Conventional troops, well-identifiable with their uniforms and hardware are virtual sitting ducks to enemy troops that blend with the civilian populace. For the long-term view, a smaller unconventional force can wear out a much larger conventional force.Link
The upside I found in the MOOTW doctrine was that it made me realize that unconventional wars didn’t actually begin with Vietnam, but also had a lot to do with our earlier history.Link When you think of the guerilla tactics our forefathers had to implement to put up a resistance against the British until Independence, it tells us that guerilla tactics aren’t at all anathema to our culture. Given the right situation, we have it in us to use unconventional war and better it to our advantage.
Unfortunately, there is this problem of understanding MOOTW and interpreting it to our present situation (not to mention decision-makers who still think we’re in WWII). It has been abused and associated with a lot of failed covert operations in our past mainly because it was then interpreted as conventional warfareLink. There is a need therefore to disengage our minds from our past biases on how to carry out warfare unconventionally and take a fresh view as we engage the current enemy.
If I were to bring out a closer example, let’s take the Hezbollah. Its ties to Syria and Iran are well-known.Link LinkWhen domestic and international pressure were brought to bear upon Syria to remove its troops out of Lebanon, Syria readily did so without batting an eyelash. Why ? It knew it could rely on the Hezbollah to continue the job the Syrian Army was sent for.
So, what’s the Hezbollah but an unconventional force ? They’re a lot different from our Green Berets or SEALs who may follow the MOOTW doctrine in the sense that Hezbollah is very well integrated with the civilian populace of concern. Our guys divorce, if not distance themselves from the civilians for security reasons In a recent interview, former Secr. of State Madelaine Albright stated apprehensively concerns of having to officially deal with a Hezbollah-supported winning candidate from Lebanon’s election due to the accepted fact that Syria had done “ a lot of groundwork” in Lebanon. The worth of such an unconventional force is being admitted in official levels.
So, Nuff said. There are several things to remember in making such an unconventional force a reality to be effectively used for our side in the present war.:
(a)The War Against Terrorism is first a War for the “Hearts and Minds”, not for Real Estate. So it’s not really as simple as “we take Iraq. It’s ours so the terrorists can’t have it and Iraq becomes our ally”. For one thing, the terrorists weren’t that interested in Iraq – not until we came along. The terrorists also are not “making their last stand in Iraq.”. They’re drawn to Iraq as a training ground for the future suicide bombers they would send to us. We should not forget that the enemy is steeled in ideology, so much that they think of their bodies as cannon fodder and the basis of this ideology, no matter how misleading we may perceive it to be, has been the single most effective recruiting factor for their side. It is impossible to win this war without first addressing ideology. We already know what we’re against but how do we expect to make allies if we fail to show their potential adherents an alternative to the terror ideology and it’s not just mouthing democracy and freedom because the enemy can mouth that out too. Why should they give up their ideology and work with us ? Do they even understand Democracy is something separate from Islam and not an alternative to it? Although we cheer whenever we see photos of our troops with Iraqi children, we shudder at the initial interviews by relatives of soldiers who communicated with them who tell us that Iraqis just want the Americans out and they see us as occupiers. Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do in this regard, mainly because we thought it wasn’t that important.
(b) Unconventional Warfare is best initiated in a state of defense . It could be in defense of one’s country, one’s belief or one’s people. It is for the long-term very ineffective when carried out in offense, as was seen in subverting regimes to change them or to export one’s beliefs as was historically seen in the US – Soviet ventures in Eastern Europe and South America during the Cold Wars. It was effective, though, for our nation’s former enemies, China and Vietnam. They were the underdogs once against the superdogs, Kuomintang and the US. So, it’s alright to think of ourselves as underdogs in this War since that’ll make us strive harder to win. We just have to reverse roles and think of the enemy as the arrogant top dogs and put ourselves in a defense mode. But what exactly are we defending when we attack a country, topple its despot, then try to reconstruct it to a design that aligns to US overseas interests ? It sort of puts us in a bind, even if we try to rationalize what made us do it in the first place in the name of 9/11. After all that’s said and done, if we place unconventional warfare in the context of the situation we find ourselves in Iraq , it will be the defense of the Iraqi people that would come to fore, and not necessarily, the defense of America. So, if it’s the defense of the Iraqis we’re talking about, against whom should they be defended ?
In the eyes of ordinary Iraqis ,the presence of conventional US troops in Iraq who attacked to topple their existing regime no matter how despotic would just be on the same footing as the jihadist fighters who later came in to carry out their bombings to make US troops leave.
Clearly, before we could , as the technologically superior force, train the newly established Iraqi security forces to even use unconventional warfare as an option in defending their country, we need to clarify to them that we are not to be seen as occupiers even as we occupy their country. Unless this is clarified to them, this very tool can be used (as it is already being used by the terrorists) by the very same Iraqi security forces against us in defense of their country.
Barring that, one of the two options left for the US government ,(much as we can’t undo the attack we made) is to turn Iraq into a US protectorate wherein American taxpayers would shoulder Iraqi governance for some years.(historical precedence for former US colonies/ protectorates is about 50 or more years. US Secr. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ventured an estimate of 12 years in a recent TV interview. This would be made feasible if funds parted from Social Security were to be realized in order that tax cuts remain. In such a situation, unconventional war could be more efficiently implemented by the Iraqi security force for their defense. The remaining option, which is for US troops to leave Iraq, even after the framing of an Iraqi Constitution, is something not even being considered by the present Administration. So people naturally ask, if things are getting better, why don’t we leave Iraq? "Things are improving" is what we hear, but not yet better.
The option of US troops leaving Iraq in the immediate future is however, still viable IF…if it were done in the way Syrian troops left Lebanon – leaving an unconventional force like Hezbollah behind .
© Unconventional Warfare takes time. Unlike the training of conventional troops, even special operations units, training of unconventional troops as far as time constraints are concerned, are often open-ended. Another difference is the focus on politicization, or ideology over tactics .By politicization is meant a more than superficial understanding of the enemy’s ideology which comes in handy in dealing well, with sympathizers or even captured terrorists, or even with recruitment or survival. There’s one more thing – we can’t talk of a 6 –month rotation for the troops here. Nobody goes home until an effective home-grown unit is trained to take over the current task the US conventional forces are doing their best to fulfill. We talk of commitment and probably the last things we want for our family. Are Americans up to these ? Hell No! We outsource the work! It’s too damned hard. Let the Iraqis do that. It’s their country! That’s right. We just muddled it up for them a bit. It’s just the right thing to do after all the hard work.
So you see, if we really are going to go for the long stretch here, there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do (to Iraqis, whose homeland had to be sacrificed in the process but more importantly to Americans who sincerely want to best defend their country) . That’s why the cries of - “Don’t argue with them.”...just give them hell”- increased in its vociferous intensity as we approached the War. It simplified our decision-making process for War , but in turn, did not really make us fully understand what we were getting into – that this War is for the long haul. The War being waged by Iraqi (and jihadist) insurgents is a protracted war. It would go on despite progress in putting up the social institutions that would make up a viable democracy. The role unconventional warfare plays, therefore still has to be addressed.
(c) Unconventional Warfare complements Conventional War. Now it really doesn’t mean to say that one is rigidly committed to engage in one or the other type of warfare or that the two types of warfare are mutually exclusive. At a certain stage of development (strategic stalemate), in a protracted war using unconventional units, unconventional warfare can transform into a conventional war.Link Conventional tactics like massing of forces for a kill are already seen being implemented by the enemy in the unfolding War, unlike before where only hit-and-run targets of opportunity were the fare. It also doesn’t mean that the two types of warfare can’t be used together. They can. They just have to be well-synchronized and the priority of one type over the other in a given situation has to be very clear in the coordinator/command’s eyes.Link LinkOtherwise, it would just be a mess.
(d) Unconventional Warfare is People-linked. The description “War in the Shadows” is appropriate when referring to the enemy who manages to effectively hide himself in the environment. He knows that in a Western movie setting where Uncle Sam would challenge him to a draw, he’d get blown to bits so he tries to sneak around him and he can only do that knowing the terrain, weather,people, etc. around him. So, in the Iraqi setting, you’re talking about an Iraqi unconventional warrior who’s on our side, not your ordinary new Caucasian combat recruit from Nebraska who would stand out like a sore thumb in an Iraqi setting. The ethnic diversity provided by our immigration policies has given us an advantage in tapping the human resource suited for this need, but we don’t really have that many Middle Eastern-looking guys. The important thing to remember is that the unconventional warrior does his best to be embedded in thecommunity where he is operating. He/she becomes part if not one with the community. The tinker, the tailor, the candle-stick maker ? Deception is his main defense and if he needs the people around the community to be his camouflage, he will need to be steeped in ideology as he convinces those around him why his survival is their survival. If he’s not convincing enough…well, it’s been nice..Jeez. Do you guys understand how difficult that job is, much less, to train someone to take that same risk, not knowing fully if he’ll turn against you ?
It’s not the purpose of this blog to discuss how and which US forces are working in Iraq but rather propose a mixture of forces whereby the problem posed by the enemy using unconventional warfare, can be better addressed.
The 1/3 - 2/3 Solution.
It’s not really 1/3 – 2/3. It could be ¼ - ¾ or even 3/8 – 5/8. Since conventional forces are sitting ducks in this war, they have to be quantitatively, the minority force. We only need token conventional forces – well-defended and maybe visible enough to bait the enemy into making their first move. The majority of the forces need to do their job - in the shadows - as unconventional forces. Since we’re the technologically more advanced force, we can have the edge in using this option.
In that setting, we can probably do a Syria and leave , with our heads up knowing that finally , after all the left-bashing or conservative-bashing blogs put out on JU, after all the bullets that whizzed by and IEDs that blew up, after all the young American lives it took, after all the times we had to carry a soldier’s casket to that deafening bleat of rifles and hand our folded flag to his widow or grieving Mom and repeat those words,”… from a grateful nation.”, finally, we learned some valuable lessons - that not to learn from our mistakes is too steep a price to pay for our democracy - that we came to save lives , not to save faces and that our job as a people is to come together and encourage others to do the same.
The disadvantage is of course obvious even to non-military people. Conventional troops, well-identifiable with their uniforms and hardware are virtual sitting ducks to enemy troops that blend with the civilian populace. For the long-term view, a smaller unconventional force can wear out a much larger conventional force.Link
The upside I found in the MOOTW doctrine was that it made me realize that unconventional wars didn’t actually begin with Vietnam, but also had a lot to do with our earlier history.Link When you think of the guerilla tactics our forefathers had to implement to put up a resistance against the British until Independence, it tells us that guerilla tactics aren’t at all anathema to our culture. Given the right situation, we have it in us to use unconventional war and better it to our advantage.
Unfortunately, there is this problem of understanding MOOTW and interpreting it to our present situation (not to mention decision-makers who still think we’re in WWII). It has been abused and associated with a lot of failed covert operations in our past mainly because it was then interpreted as conventional warfareLink. There is a need therefore to disengage our minds from our past biases on how to carry out warfare unconventionally and take a fresh view as we engage the current enemy.
If I were to bring out a closer example, let’s take the Hezbollah. Its ties to Syria and Iran are well-known.Link LinkWhen domestic and international pressure were brought to bear upon Syria to remove its troops out of Lebanon, Syria readily did so without batting an eyelash. Why ? It knew it could rely on the Hezbollah to continue the job the Syrian Army was sent for.
So, what’s the Hezbollah but an unconventional force ? They’re a lot different from our Green Berets or SEALs who may follow the MOOTW doctrine in the sense that Hezbollah is very well integrated with the civilian populace of concern. Our guys divorce, if not distance themselves from the civilians for security reasons In a recent interview, former Secr. of State Madelaine Albright stated apprehensively concerns of having to officially deal with a Hezbollah-supported winning candidate from Lebanon’s election due to the accepted fact that Syria had done “ a lot of groundwork” in Lebanon. The worth of such an unconventional force is being admitted in official levels.
So, Nuff said. There are several things to remember in making such an unconventional force a reality to be effectively used for our side in the present war.:
(a)The War Against Terrorism is first a War for the “Hearts and Minds”, not for Real Estate. So it’s not really as simple as “we take Iraq. It’s ours so the terrorists can’t have it and Iraq becomes our ally”. For one thing, the terrorists weren’t that interested in Iraq – not until we came along. The terrorists also are not “making their last stand in Iraq.”. They’re drawn to Iraq as a training ground for the future suicide bombers they would send to us. We should not forget that the enemy is steeled in ideology, so much that they think of their bodies as cannon fodder and the basis of this ideology, no matter how misleading we may perceive it to be, has been the single most effective recruiting factor for their side. It is impossible to win this war without first addressing ideology. We already know what we’re against but how do we expect to make allies if we fail to show their potential adherents an alternative to the terror ideology and it’s not just mouthing democracy and freedom because the enemy can mouth that out too. Why should they give up their ideology and work with us ? Do they even understand Democracy is something separate from Islam and not an alternative to it? Although we cheer whenever we see photos of our troops with Iraqi children, we shudder at the initial interviews by relatives of soldiers who communicated with them who tell us that Iraqis just want the Americans out and they see us as occupiers. Clearly, we still have a lot of work to do in this regard, mainly because we thought it wasn’t that important.
(b) Unconventional Warfare is best initiated in a state of defense . It could be in defense of one’s country, one’s belief or one’s people. It is for the long-term very ineffective when carried out in offense, as was seen in subverting regimes to change them or to export one’s beliefs as was historically seen in the US – Soviet ventures in Eastern Europe and South America during the Cold Wars. It was effective, though, for our nation’s former enemies, China and Vietnam. They were the underdogs once against the superdogs, Kuomintang and the US. So, it’s alright to think of ourselves as underdogs in this War since that’ll make us strive harder to win. We just have to reverse roles and think of the enemy as the arrogant top dogs and put ourselves in a defense mode. But what exactly are we defending when we attack a country, topple its despot, then try to reconstruct it to a design that aligns to US overseas interests ? It sort of puts us in a bind, even if we try to rationalize what made us do it in the first place in the name of 9/11. After all that’s said and done, if we place unconventional warfare in the context of the situation we find ourselves in Iraq , it will be the defense of the Iraqi people that would come to fore, and not necessarily, the defense of America. So, if it’s the defense of the Iraqis we’re talking about, against whom should they be defended ?
In the eyes of ordinary Iraqis ,the presence of conventional US troops in Iraq who attacked to topple their existing regime no matter how despotic would just be on the same footing as the jihadist fighters who later came in to carry out their bombings to make US troops leave.
Clearly, before we could , as the technologically superior force, train the newly established Iraqi security forces to even use unconventional warfare as an option in defending their country, we need to clarify to them that we are not to be seen as occupiers even as we occupy their country. Unless this is clarified to them, this very tool can be used (as it is already being used by the terrorists) by the very same Iraqi security forces against us in defense of their country.
Barring that, one of the two options left for the US government ,(much as we can’t undo the attack we made) is to turn Iraq into a US protectorate wherein American taxpayers would shoulder Iraqi governance for some years.(historical precedence for former US colonies/ protectorates is about 50 or more years. US Secr. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ventured an estimate of 12 years in a recent TV interview. This would be made feasible if funds parted from Social Security were to be realized in order that tax cuts remain. In such a situation, unconventional war could be more efficiently implemented by the Iraqi security force for their defense. The remaining option, which is for US troops to leave Iraq, even after the framing of an Iraqi Constitution, is something not even being considered by the present Administration. So people naturally ask, if things are getting better, why don’t we leave Iraq? "Things are improving" is what we hear, but not yet better.
The option of US troops leaving Iraq in the immediate future is however, still viable IF…if it were done in the way Syrian troops left Lebanon – leaving an unconventional force like Hezbollah behind .
© Unconventional Warfare takes time. Unlike the training of conventional troops, even special operations units, training of unconventional troops as far as time constraints are concerned, are often open-ended. Another difference is the focus on politicization, or ideology over tactics .By politicization is meant a more than superficial understanding of the enemy’s ideology which comes in handy in dealing well, with sympathizers or even captured terrorists, or even with recruitment or survival. There’s one more thing – we can’t talk of a 6 –month rotation for the troops here. Nobody goes home until an effective home-grown unit is trained to take over the current task the US conventional forces are doing their best to fulfill. We talk of commitment and probably the last things we want for our family. Are Americans up to these ? Hell No! We outsource the work! It’s too damned hard. Let the Iraqis do that. It’s their country! That’s right. We just muddled it up for them a bit. It’s just the right thing to do after all the hard work.
So you see, if we really are going to go for the long stretch here, there’s going to be a lot of explaining to do (to Iraqis, whose homeland had to be sacrificed in the process but more importantly to Americans who sincerely want to best defend their country) . That’s why the cries of - “Don’t argue with them.”...just give them hell”- increased in its vociferous intensity as we approached the War. It simplified our decision-making process for War , but in turn, did not really make us fully understand what we were getting into – that this War is for the long haul. The War being waged by Iraqi (and jihadist) insurgents is a protracted war. It would go on despite progress in putting up the social institutions that would make up a viable democracy. The role unconventional warfare plays, therefore still has to be addressed.
(c) Unconventional Warfare complements Conventional War. Now it really doesn’t mean to say that one is rigidly committed to engage in one or the other type of warfare or that the two types of warfare are mutually exclusive. At a certain stage of development (strategic stalemate), in a protracted war using unconventional units, unconventional warfare can transform into a conventional war.Link Conventional tactics like massing of forces for a kill are already seen being implemented by the enemy in the unfolding War, unlike before where only hit-and-run targets of opportunity were the fare. It also doesn’t mean that the two types of warfare can’t be used together. They can. They just have to be well-synchronized and the priority of one type over the other in a given situation has to be very clear in the coordinator/command’s eyes.Link LinkOtherwise, it would just be a mess.
(d) Unconventional Warfare is People-linked. The description “War in the Shadows” is appropriate when referring to the enemy who manages to effectively hide himself in the environment. He knows that in a Western movie setting where Uncle Sam would challenge him to a draw, he’d get blown to bits so he tries to sneak around him and he can only do that knowing the terrain, weather,people, etc. around him. So, in the Iraqi setting, you’re talking about an Iraqi unconventional warrior who’s on our side, not your ordinary new Caucasian combat recruit from Nebraska who would stand out like a sore thumb in an Iraqi setting. The ethnic diversity provided by our immigration policies has given us an advantage in tapping the human resource suited for this need, but we don’t really have that many Middle Eastern-looking guys. The important thing to remember is that the unconventional warrior does his best to be embedded in thecommunity where he is operating. He/she becomes part if not one with the community. The tinker, the tailor, the candle-stick maker ? Deception is his main defense and if he needs the people around the community to be his camouflage, he will need to be steeped in ideology as he convinces those around him why his survival is their survival. If he’s not convincing enough…well, it’s been nice..Jeez. Do you guys understand how difficult that job is, much less, to train someone to take that same risk, not knowing fully if he’ll turn against you ?
It’s not the purpose of this blog to discuss how and which US forces are working in Iraq but rather propose a mixture of forces whereby the problem posed by the enemy using unconventional warfare, can be better addressed.
The 1/3 - 2/3 Solution.
It’s not really 1/3 – 2/3. It could be ¼ - ¾ or even 3/8 – 5/8. Since conventional forces are sitting ducks in this war, they have to be quantitatively, the minority force. We only need token conventional forces – well-defended and maybe visible enough to bait the enemy into making their first move. The majority of the forces need to do their job - in the shadows - as unconventional forces. Since we’re the technologically more advanced force, we can have the edge in using this option.
In that setting, we can probably do a Syria and leave , with our heads up knowing that finally , after all the left-bashing or conservative-bashing blogs put out on JU, after all the bullets that whizzed by and IEDs that blew up, after all the young American lives it took, after all the times we had to carry a soldier’s casket to that deafening bleat of rifles and hand our folded flag to his widow or grieving Mom and repeat those words,”… from a grateful nation.”, finally, we learned some valuable lessons - that not to learn from our mistakes is too steep a price to pay for our democracy - that we came to save lives , not to save faces and that our job as a people is to come together and encourage others to do the same.
