Again with the advisors

IN THE NEWS
How well is the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq doing? A lot depends on the effort to train Iraqi security forces. So what do you make of highly impressionist articles like Thomas Ricks' recent piece , which starts with the following gloomy assessment:

The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.

You might dismiss the complaints in this article as the usual grumbling from the grognards. There are never enough resources for the mission, or never enough time to do it right. In even the most successful military campaigns, people in uniform will find things to complain about, usually with justification. While the PFC's corner of the war may look chaotic and disastrous, the general may see an overall success.

However, the problems described Ricks' article are not mere grumbling. If anyone in the front lines of the Iraqi counterinsurgency war--and the advisors are the real front line--admits that they lack the language or cultural skills to adequately train their Iraqi counterparts, US forces are still not equipped to help defeat the Iraqi insurgents.

In the history of US counterinsurgency efforts, the fulcrum of success is often the way the American military prioritizes this kind of warfare. Three years into the occupation of Iraq, a sure sign that counterinsurgency is still not adequately prioritized is the ad hoc way in which American advisors are prepared:

A separate internal review this year by the military's Center for Army Lessons Learned, based on 152 interviews with soldiers involved in the training and advisory program, found that there was "no standardized guideline" for preparing advisers and that such instruction was needed because "a majority of advisors have little to no previous experience or training."

Imagine if each tank platoon in the US Army received a different set of training, with varying degrees of quality. Imagine if each SEAL team received recruited and trained for unconventional warfare differently. Now, imagine yourself as a divisional or theater commander, trying to figure out how well a particular war is going. Maybe the doctrine is wrong--but which doctrine, among many that various units under your command seem to be pursuing? Even more important is the perspective of Iraqi civilian and military leaders, trying to make sense of what the US government wants them to do.

Of course, you don't have to imagine these things, because the US military doesn't allow them to happen. Even among the US special operations forces (SOFs), frequently unpopular with the more conventionally-minded generals who prefer working with tank units, there is enough consistency in training across similar SOF units to know what you're getting.

In short, the Ricks article identifies a severe defect with the US counterinsurgency effort in Iraq. All other grumbling aside, the complaints aout training must be addressed. Even if the theater strategy were a work of genius, it can't succeed if the lower strategic strata fracture into disconnected, misguided efforts.

If the new Congress wants to start dealing with Iraq on the right foot, it might focus its attention on this problem. The US Army needs to treat the training mission in Iraq as the first priority, not the last. While there may be some institutional inertia and doctrinal resistance to this notion, the Congress has helped overcome these obstacles before, when it dictated changes to the SOFs that the Pentagon was unwilling to make. If the US military fails to do an effective job of training, neither the "go big" or go long" options really exist.

Comments

[vibramfiveinger kso]

With several vibram five finger returnees that played last year including three starters, and a large group of talented vibram fivefingers kso newcomers, the linebackers will be the strength of the Reddie defense. Leading the way will be Mike vibram five fingers Wightman, Steve Butrick, Kevin Lloyd and Taylor Stone. Kyle Mathieu, fivefingers kso, Ben Chandler, and Benny Anderson add depth to the Reddie middle four. Mathieu played in all 10 vibram five finger shoes games last season and totaled 17 tackles. The other three are cheap vibram five fingers newcomers, with Aldridge transferred from Indiana State fivefingers shoes where he played in all 11 games on special teams. Chandler comes to Henderson from American River fivefingers kso trek shoes Community College where he was an All-American pick, while Benny Anderson comes to Henderson after having 62 fivefingers shoes tackles, including eight tackles for a loss and one interception last year at Antelope Valley Community vibram fivefingers shoes sale College. Both of the new vibram fivefingers faces logged time at the Nevada County campus previously.Tubiolo split time between Sierra College and vibram fivefingers running American River College, and Eubanks between vibram kso sale Sierra College and Los Rios Community College.Students shuffled through Sierra College's Nevada County Campus Wednesday vibram kso in preparation for another year of school. Hefting backpacks and calling out to old friends, they passed by two familiar faces in new fivefingers kso trek positions. Heather Eubanks and Sam Tubiolo both have taught at the Grass Valley campus before, but each recently vibram fivefingers kso has hired on as full-time faculty an event they found surprising vibram five finger given the budget-slashing in California public education, they said. http://www.vibramfivefinger.org/