Pop-COIN and ‘The Death of American Strategy’

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In the Third Issue of Infinity Journal (Summer 2011), respected U.S. Army Colonel, Professor of Military History at West Point, and combat battalion commander in Iraq, Gian P. Gentile wrote an article titled, “The Death of American Strategy”.[1] In the article, not unlike a number of other pieces penned by Gentile, he relays to his readers that the tactics of so-called Population-Centric Counterinsurgency (Pop-COIN) has “slayed” American strategy. As was to be expected, many reactions have been critical. To be fair, many of the comments about the article, as well as critical comments about other past articles opposing Pop-COIN written by a number of authors, do contain some solid points that are more than worthy of further analysis. However, it seems that Gentile’s message, among others criticizing U.S. military doctrine, have been misunderstood. Bringing greater clarity to these messages is the purpose of this brief article.

So, what exactly was Gentile suggesting by stating that U.S. strategy is dead and the killer is counterinsurgency tactics? It seems that many have taken the words in a far too literal sense. Despite the forthright title of the article, Gentile was not implying that American strategy is actually dead and buried. A title, after all, is often meant to entice the reader to enter the heart of the article — the argument. A slightly deeper analysis of the text may have brought forward a more correct interpretation of Gentile’s thesis. His actual argument is that Pop-COIN has severely and dangerously stymied productive American thinking on Strategy. More specifically, what Gentile was getting at was that ever since the implementation of FM 3-24 as official U.S. military doctrine — doctrine that is arguably backed by very little (if any) historical evidence — the tactics of Pop-COIN have completely dislodged good and viable strategic thinking and practice.

The U.S. is now engaged in its longest war in its history, and the costs of that war are climbing at exponential rates. By mid-2010, U.S. defence spending per month was estimated at $6.7 billion in Afghanistan (just over $80 billion per annum).[2] Given that there are very few positive outcomes that are actually a result of the tactics of a Pop-COIN approach, Gentile’s statements contain serious value. After all, any successful disruption and degradation of al-Qa’ida and Taliban, in the main, belongs to the realm of killing and capturing.

Gentile goes a bit deeper in examining the identifiers of the problems with U.S. Strategy. He states that the “death of American Strategy” — or perhaps better stated, the dangerous level of unproductive and ineffective strategic thinking — is a result of the incompatibility of U.S. national resources for the “purposes of the war”. In other words, the current tactics that bring particular strategies to life are not delivering the political conditions sought.

Is Gentile wrong? In fact, Gentile is correct, as is Ralph Peters, Andrew Mumford, and Michael A. Cohen, among others — that after 11 years, U.S. policy objectives have yet to be sufficiently reached and there is nothing to suggest that a Pop-COIN approach will change anything in the near future.[3] As stated, most headway is a result of two specific activities – killing and capturing – which according to the history of warfare have very little, if anything, to do with socio-economic activities, protecting the population, or “clear, hold, and build”. What many top American officials know all too well, is that this so-called “new way of war” is not working — the “old way” does, which is why the latter has been in play for well over 3,000 years.

This is not to paint Gentile’s response to Afghanistan, or any other so-called anti-Pop-COIN author, solely on an enemy-centric canvas. Enemy-centric (and population-centric) are both tactical methods for Strategy to employ. The point being made is two-fold: first, Pop-COIN is clearly proving not to be the method to be utilized in warfare. After 11 years in Afghanistan, with very little to show Pop-Coin during this ‘long war’, this should be obvious. Second, if enemy-centric is to be employed, it should be applied under a radically different Strategy that utilizes a much smaller footprint relying largely on Special Operations Forces (SOF), and other necessary support. One possibility is Austin Long’s ‘counterterrorism’ approach; another is the so-called Biden Plan, which calls for a decrease in the presence of U.S. troops and a greater focus on striking the enemy rather than focusing on protecting the enemy’s population at the risk of American lives. In fact, Gentile, Long, and even Biden are simply referring to a classical strategic approach to warfare. Either way, the U.S. needs to withdraw from “armed nation building” business and stay clear of advice such as “to embrace the population and be sparing in the use of firepower” and be wary of statements such as “The Afghan people are at the center of our mission. In reality, they are the mission. We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature.”[4] In fact, it is not about protecting the people. Rather, we must accept that this tactical/operational method is actually about — in fact it is all about — breaking the will of the enemy to resist, and breaking will is accomplished through violence. Warfare is not the sphere of kindness — it is where violence for the establishment of political conditions reigns, and believing that one can alter its nature through magnanimous acts in the midst of combat will likely cause even greater problems than already exists. We know this because this is what history has taught us.

Despite the arguably incorrect and detrimental U.S. approach of long-term armed nation building as a way towards victory, Gentile states that strategy can be “resurrected”. Again, his choice of words simply infers that the barrier currently standing between good and bad strategic thinking and practice can be broken down. The point of breaking such a barrier? To not only win the wars but also to save American lives in the process. Again, as unpleasant as this truth may be, extant evidence suggests that the tactics of killing and capturing is where any success has been drawn — soldiers and commanders ‘on the ground’ are more aware of this truth than many realize or perhaps even more than they themselves would like to admit. One may ask, why else would the U.S. Marine Corps finally decide it was time to ship over M1A1 tanks mounted with 120mm cannons and advanced optics for the first time in ten years?[5] Such equipment is not designed for the purposes of nation building and it is certainly not equipment for ‘winning hearts and minds’. The purpose of a 120mm cannon is to kill the enemy and destroy his infrastructure with a wider objective of breaking his will to resist. The same goes for an increase in a strategy of U.S. targeted killings (TK) in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The reason for the increase in a strategy of TKs? The focus of an army’s means in the physical attrition against the enemy works. The focus on an army’s means in construction projects, walking the opponent’s children to school, and other state-level infrastructural works have no place in the midst of warfare; these activities should be saved for post-war efforts if that is what the policy calls for — hardly an original idea.

Gentile states that “American armed nation building at the barrel of a gun simply does not work and strategy should discern this basic truth.” Again, Gentile is correct. The idea that one can simultaneously engage in warfare and nation building is comparable to mixing oil and water. They do not and cannot blend. As the article clearly states, Gentile, Peters, Long, Biden, and others are not against assisting a nation in reconstruction efforts if that is what the U.S. government decides is best for its national interests. However, as should be clear given our historical treasure chest of over 3,000 years of the history of warfare, the wars first need to be won — again, hardly an original notion. That is, if a country has chosen to engage in warfare, the focus of one’s efforts and the means at one’s disposal must be on the physical attrition of the enemy to the point that the enemy’s will to continue violently resisting has been broken. Once will is broken and once one’s political condition has been imposed, post-war reconstruction projects can then commence at will, but only if that is what the policy calls for. Given the outcomes of thousands of wars throughout history, political will can always be broken but one must be willing to not only put forward the necessary means and the necessary determination to fight but also to correctly understand the war in which one is entering. As Clausewitz warned, one must understand the kind of war a nation is undertaking, “neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature” — advice that the most powerful and most capable military force in history should take more seriously.[6]

[1] Gian P. Gentile, “The Death of American Strategy”, Infinity Journal, Issue No. 3, Summer 2011, pages 14-16.

[2] Richard Wolf, “Afghan war costs now outpace Iraq's”, USA Today, 13 May 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-05-12-afghan_N.htm(accessed 6 January 2012).

[3] For an excellent analysis, see Michael A. Cohen’s “The Myth of a Kinder, Gentler War” in World Policy Journal, Volume 27, Number 1, Spring 2010 (75-86).

[4] “Gen. McChrystal Takes Command in Afghanistan”, Fox News (originally published in the Associated Press), 15 June 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526305,00.html(accessed 6 January 2012).

[5] Dan Lamothe, “Corps to deploy M1A1 tanks to Afghanistan”, Marine Corps Times, 19 November 2010, http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/11/marine-afghanistan-tanks-111910w/(accessed 6 January 2012).

[6] Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Edited and Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), page 88.

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Contributor:   A.E. Stahl

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A.E. Stahl is an Associate at the Institute for National Security Studies, Military and Strategic Affairs Division, in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is pursuing his PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, focusing on Israeli Strategy. A.E. Stahl is the co-founder and publisher of Infinity Journal.