[The Reaper]

I have written a very long response to this and lost it twice, so bullet comments, for now.

IMHO, the center of gravity for COIN (and the GWOT) is the support of the populace.

Gs cannot conduct ops or survive without popular support of some kind, even if it is just regional or neighborhood. As Mao said, a G without the people's support is a fish out of the water. No to low support, lots of actionable intel, low G activity, controllable violence.

The Dems, MSM, and anti-war nuts have already lost this war with their cut and run efforts, successful, or not. Done deal, put it in the history books.

If I am an Iraqi sitting at home and I see the supporting government debating on the date for the cut and run, I am not helping anyone till the deal is over and I see how things sort out. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Step up and rat out the Gs to the government and you will pay. Best to say nothing. The US forces will largely be gone or going by the next inauguration. Be sure that if you supported the US, you are on the last plane out.

US has not had a good track record of taking care of people who helped us. Look at the Afghan local who took care of the last SEAL from the recon mission that went south. He should have been rewarded and given passports and tickets to the land of the big PX for him and his immediate family. Big PSYOP theme, like the "last season's winners" in "The Running Man". Instead we left him out to dry. Now a G theme - "Help the US and get screwed, then we saw your kids' heads off."

The US public lacks patience and political will for a COIN campaign with any media coverage. MSM provides a daily PSYOP assault on US populace with loss reports, bad news, failures, and a never ending parade of armchair generals passed over and who are "experts" at critiquing the ongoing operation. Better to hide the long war in a box and report back every five years. Easier for the politicians to oppose the war from the beginning, hope we lose, work towards that end, claim partial credit and point out mistakes if we win.

Conventional forces do not have the tools for this. Conventional Army in 2000 was still focused on Fulda Gap against the Soviets, repelling NK invasion, or DS all over again. Little if any thought on LIC, COIN, or post-conflict activity. Best to have conventional force learn Galen's "First, do no harm." Provide exploitation and QRF, help train government military and LE forces, assist with local security efforts (without making HN forces look weak or antagonizing populace).

Do not lose core MOS skills. Tankers still need to spend time making sure that they can shoot. Gun bunnies still need to remember how to shoot and scoot.

Even SF, with years of experience in FID, language training, area orientation, cultural awareness, etc., decided a long time ago that SF could not maintain proficiency in more than one or two of our then five core missions, so we specialized. FID/COIN is a tough one, and requires a lot of maturity, social skills, and experience, which you are not going to get in a two-week class. Large US presence now works against our goals and the Iraqi government. Shows foreign influence, delegitimizes, makes HN forces look incapable of providing internal security, a core mission.

The conventional war is over. Kinetic solutions are not the key to this war anymore, hearts and minds are. This is pretty much a lost cause due to strategic political decisions, except at the lowest level where "un-ugly Americans" and indig meet.

Best hope now, IMHO, is to try to lay a big smackdown on the most visible insurgent threats (why is al Sadr still alive?), buy the Iraqi (and Afghan) governments time to get their forces ready, to train and equip them to the best of our capabilities, to put at least a rudimentary PSYOP effort into place to win over the populace, to help people who help us, and to try and transition this back to a SOF campaign (not the ballistic solution DA SOF, the hearts and minds SOF). We need to be helping the Iraqi government, not doing their jobs for them.

How many of these were observed in the US war plan?

Imperatives
Understand the operational environment
Recognize political implications
Facilitate interagency activities
Engage the threat discriminately
Consider long-term effects
Ensure legitimacy and credibility of Special Operations
Anticipate and control psychological effects
Apply capabilities indirectly
Develop multiple options
Ensure long-term sustainment
Provide sufficient intelligence
Balance security and synchronization


Just my .02, YMMV.

TR