Can't Tell the Players WIthout a Field Manual

Robert Farley reports on a visit to an Army training facility at Fort Knox and observes, "one thing that I found particularly interesting is that in this discussion of transformation and training revision NO ONE mentioned FM 3-24; indeed, while the captains we spoke to later in the afternoon knew about it, none we spoke to had read it."

FM 3-24 is, of course, the famous counterinsurgency field manual written by General David Petraeus before he was posted to Iraq, a document that's been much chewed-over by national security reporters and pundits. Of course, I suppose it's possible that the manual is having a large impact on training through second-order effects even though it doesn't seem to be widely read, but this does call into question how much has really changed since its completion.

Comments

The article did say that the training there was 1.) an The US Army Armor School and 2.) basic training.

Personally I wouldn't think that COIN training would be terribly appropriate for either of those situations.

Posted by William | April 13, 2008 8:55 AM

Well, there should be second order effects for basic training, as it seems likely there were, given the changes in the last three years.

Fort Knox does have an armor school, but in addition to preparing officers for fighting the Soviet hordes, they're also preparing them to fight in Iraq; almost all the folks we spoke to had been in Iraq, expected to go back, and believed that this training would enhance their effectiveness. Most of the vehicles they drove in Iraq weren't tanks, but much of the training crosses over.

Posted by Rob | April 13, 2008 9:04 AM

It's over anyway. The counter insurgency fight that is. The strategies used by Bush's general don't need to be studied by the ranks because it's all been a temporary shell game. One way or the other we now will slowly begin disengagement on ground level and will play through proxies, all of who have their bad points but on the plus side every dead Iraqi is a good thing, so there you go.

We will withdraw to the bases, hope the oil exports increase and in any case make sure that those exports flow into the normal market, priced in dollars.

Posted by rapier | April 13, 2008 9:59 AM

The military has more manuals and publications than you even want to think about. Noone is going to be familiar with more than a small subset of them. If you find several officers who haven't read a particular manual, that shouldn't be a surprise. Also, I read the article and came across this:

Another had gone to the Air Force Academy and transferred to the Army after finding he liked what the Army did better.

Well I'll be damned, someone actually did the blue to green thing.

Posted by guineapigfury | April 13, 2008 10:32 AM

I don't know whether this anecdote is profound or superficial, but I certainly expect that the 'battle' within the Pentagon for the post-Iraq configuration of the order of battle in the United State military is already engaged just as it was immediately after our involvement in Vietnam ended. People forget that the Green Berets and other "special forces" were formed precisely to do what FM 3-24 and COIN were intended to reiterate. Elite troops such as the Marines, SEALs, and Rangers were never intended to manage nation-building... and some have so degraded the stature and capacity of the Foreign Service - deliberately and unfortunately, for the most part, in my humble opinion - that there is little alternative the the military these days...

Posted by batondor | April 13, 2008 10:40 AM

CORRECTION: I did not mean to imply that our people in uniform have degraded the capacity and role of the State Department... I meant to write that our political leadership has, the NeoCons and Bush administration, first and foremost!

On the contrary, those of our fellow citizens in uniform have served courageously and brilliantly, for the most part, but they can only be expected to fulfill 20% of the objectives necessary in nation-building (as General Petraeus and the FM 3-24 explicitly postulate, I might add...).

Posted by batondor | April 13, 2008 10:46 AM

Pseudo-science

To folks who have a whole lot of military power, like say the US in the early 21st Century, it would sure be nice if there was some body of knowledge that allowed you to leverage that power into effective control of the otherwise messy, unpredictable and uncontrollable politics of other countries. It would also sure be nice if there was some science, based on some easily observable and categorizable features in nature, such as, I don't know, the positions of the stars and planets, that would tell you how to bring order, predictability and control to our personal lives, which are notably lacking in these qualities.

Sadly, the universe does not organize itself for our convenience. It's purpose, if any, does not seem to be to make our lives, personal lives or the life of our nation in the community of nations, predictable, or to put us in control of the universe. Good thing, that last, as we have some difficulty with reality-testing when offered snake oil remedies that promise to short-cut reality, and we probably wouldn't do a very good job of running the universe. Or even just Iraq. Our own country we do much better at because, with a democratic and republican form of government, the whole idea is to hold how much any of us is allowed to run anything within very tight limits. We would be better off studying how to limit foolish attempts at control, rather than chasing after pseudo-sciences that promise control over the uncontrollable.

This is a roundabout way of saying that it is as unremarkable that military professionals intensivley engaged in training the next generation of professionals show no interest in a FM on the subject of "Counter-Insurgency", than it would be if the faculty of a medical school showed little interest in astrology.

"Counter-Insurgency" is part of a con-game, not a science. The only military professionals you will see talking about it, except to refute it, will be con artists working the rubes.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | April 13, 2008 12:01 PM

Whopper said the definitive story about COIN years ago in the movie "War Games":

"The only way to win is not to play."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 13, 2008 8:31 PM