Gates, Congress: Un/Conventional Warfare vs. the Budget

[eddie]

Gates Cuts vs. Congress

Actually, the article was more about the changes that are intended to be in place the coverage of the Legislature's arguments.

What I have read suggests to me that as long as we are unable or unwilling to pay for "all of it," that it is better to build the force optimized for COIN, etc. today than to build for China tomorrow. That it is somehow easier to go from unconventional to conventional than visa-versa, and cross-over utility of training.

One Army General at the end of the article points out that "jointness" and combined arms are no less stressed in unconventional than conventional warfare and that a higher percentage of junior personnell actually benefit more from low-intensity experiences.

Where's the truth?

 

[Junkball]

I have no qualifications to comment on this with any authority, but the the focus on COIN really worries me. I fear we may be significantly eroding our "big-war" conventional conflict warfighting abilities in pursuit of preparing our military to fight the last war(s). Perhaps the transition from low-intensity to conventional high-intensity fighting ability is easier than vice-versa, but I still think it better to maintain such a capability rather than attempt to rebuild it in the middle of such a conflict.

 

[Lawman]

Gates Cuts vs. Congress
What I have read suggests to me that as long as we are unable or unwilling to pay for "all of it," that it is better to build the force optimized for COIN, etc. today than to build for China tomorrow. That it is somehow easier to go from unconventional to conventional than visa-versa, and cross-over utility of training.

Absolute and complete utter bullshit to invest our future in that strategy. If you go to war unsure how to fight COIN you will take a few casualties a month working it out by fire the way we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. We go to war with a conventional force on force linear Army and we will loose entire battalions and divisions "figuring out" how to employ our forces.

There's a reason we took Iraq with so few casualties. Its because we are so much better at our job than anybody that tries to stop us from doing it.

 

[nittany03]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30675198Where's the truth?

Good question, but it seems to me that the Marine Corps which fought in WWI and WWII also dealt with a bunch of brush fires, "small wars," whatever you want to call them in between. Meanwhile, the Navy was busy eviscerating itself under the London and Washington treaties.

 

[mmx1]

There's a reason we took Iraq with so few casualties. Its because we are so much better at our job than anybody that tries to stop us from doing it.

Is that why we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan six and seven years later? Because we're so much better at our job than the people trying to stop us from doing it?

Despite what anyone says it isn't an either/or. We aren't discarding our conventional capabilities, and not having 281 F-22's doesn't mean we magically forget how to take a hill. Ask the TBS LT's how many fighting holes they've dug. The fundamentals still apply in COIN.

 

[Brett327]

This is nothing new. We've been incrementally degrading our ability to fight "the big war" since the tanks to plowshares crowd's eyes turned to pinwheels after the cold war. Obviously, an adjustment was necessary, and our nation must continue to adjust its procurement and force structure policies to meet what we feel are the priorities given what threats are out there. It's easy to criticize people for what some may feel is too narrow a focus on COIN (or whatever), but we have to understand that these decisions are made within an unbelievably constraining political framework where the proverbial "closest alligator to the canoe" gets the most attention. At the end of the day, our policymakers are beholden to the people and the electorate - a body of people who are, unfortunately, completely ignorant of the very concepts that we are discussing in this thread. The people's misconceptions and misunderstandings of warfare and strategic thinking are ultimately to blame. One of the perils of Democracy, IMO.

Brett

 

[Lawman]

Is that why we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan six and seven years later? Because we're so much better at our job than the people trying to stop us from doing it?

Despite what anyone says it isn't an either/or. We aren't discarding our conventional capabilities, and not having 281 F-22's doesn't mean we magically forget how to take a hill. Ask the TBS LT's how many fighting holes they've dug. The fundamentals still apply in COIN.

Id rather still be in Iraq and Afghanistan six years later than have had the fight we could have had. Do you have any idea how many body bags we had the 1st time we went into Iraq in 91 just stockpiled ready to go. My fathers job was to be NCOIC of a mass casualty collection point... Luckily he had a slow work day throughout that conflict.

So yeah lets stop spending the money on flight time for our aviators to practice whatever their platform does best and just concentrate on flying around at 4000 feet staring at guys who cant hit you back on FLIR. In the Navys case lets forget the Subs. We can just leave the attack boats in the harbor and save money on that. Lets blow the millions of dollars we could have spent at the Armor school teaching our tank guys formation battle drills and target engagement. After all, what we really need those guys to know is how to drive through a town without smashing the walls out of buildings and putting HEAT rounds into buildings down the street.

 

[Flash]

Id rather still be in Iraq and Afghanistan six years later than have had the fight we could have had......So yeah lets stop spending the money on flight time for our aviators to practice whatever their platform does best and just concentrate on flying around at 4000 feet staring at guys who cant hit you back on FLIR. In the Navys case lets forget the Subs......Lets blow the millions of dollars we could have spent at the Armor school.....

Part of the problem was that many of arguments that you put forth are the same ones guys used in the early years of OIF and OEF to not refocus assets on the wars we were actually fighting. There was so much focus on the long-term and the conventional wars we may fight that COIN and the support, training and equipment for that was in many cases ignored.

I have had a relatively limited view on things, mainly from a air-breathing ISR perspective, but I saw repeatedly the blinders many had on to needs of the current wars were costing us dearly. A complete refusal/ignorance to open up and realize what was needed NOW, it was maddening to the point of despair for many who saw the forest through the trees. It was a failure on many levels of leadership and only really changed when Secretary Gates moved in.

In the great grand scheme of things COIN is a lot cheaper than regular war, at least to the military. The general budget focus will be 10% for irregular warfare, 50% for conventional and 40% can be used for both. Doesn't mean that we will lose our conventional capability by any means, just focusing on the task at hand. Certainly continuing things in the right direction, and about damn time.

 

[Lawman]

Flash there was a big deal not to long ago about taking the National Training Center units at Ft Irwin and turning them over the a combat brigade. The reasoning being that people were complaining in an era of repeated deployments that here was a unit that wasnt going anywhere and was draining Army resources. At the same time they provide a critical training capability of being more than just a unit told "hey go be bad guys." It'd be no different to get rid of them for that justification than to say get rid of your guys whole operation at Fallon on the grounds that, we arent fighting against an enemy with IADS and a capable force of Air so why are we training against it.

Do we need to have a capability to fight low intensity wars, or at least keep a group of people with the knowledge base to be able to bring everybody else up to speed absolutely. However this idea of that being the only kind of fight we will ever do again is just as retarded as somebody getting rid of all the Abrams and Bradleys and saying lets just buy MRAPs and Strykers for the rest of eternity because we wont ever need anything else.

 

[usmarinemike]

Is that why we're still in Iraq and Afghanistan six and seven years later? Because we're so much better at our job than the people trying to stop us from doing it?

Irrelevant. We're still there because an insurgency is designed to take as long as it needs to take. Insurgencies are measured in DECADES, not years or months.


People in this thread are taking two very opposite sides here, but the truth is this..."Preparing for counterinsurgency" is almost completely a mental game. Tactics, techniques, and procedures for the triggerpullers are by and large quite the same so most individual training is exactly the same despite some major differences in tactical deployment of units. What most people are ACTUALLY arguing about here is how much firepower will need to be employed at any one time in the future and the systems that deliver it.

COIN proponents need to remember that a full scale conventional war poses a greater threat to sovereignty and human life than any insurgency.

Those who would discard counterinsurgency capabilities to make what we're best at on the planet even better need to remember two things. First, no "future enemy" would fight us where we're strongest. Why do you think our previous "future enemy" (our current enemy) used insurgency instead of pure maneuver warfare? That leads into the second point, insurgency is the only viable form of warfare against an enemy strong in either maneuver or attrition warfare.

It's all about balance. Nobody is talking about scrapping what we have going for us. But we must spend less money, and we must not ignore counterinsurgence like we did for the 20 years prior to OEF/OIF.

 

[eddie]

EDIT: I see we are covering the Afghanistan command change elsewhere!