The Gamble by Ricks

Ref: Thomas Ricks (2010). The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq. Penguin Books.

_________________________________________________________

Summary

  • A Short History of Operation Iraqi Freedom; where initial US strategy went wrong, and how the mission changed from conventional warfare to counter-insurgency.

  • History provides countless warnings that states as divided and weak as Iraq is today rarely become stable, liberal democracies, without a long series of power struggles.

  • The violence in Iraq is not going to end. There'll always be some sort of a low-level insurgency in Iraq for the next 5, 10, 15 years. The issue is, what is the level of that insurgency? And can the Iraqis handle it with their own forces and with their government? That's the issue.-General Odierno.

  • The three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: Tribalism, Warlordism, and Sectarianism.

  • The fundamental fact about Iraq is, we're kind of stuck.

_________________________________________________________

Operation Iraqi Freedom

  • Iraq MNF Mission: US Mission and Coalition Forces will, in partnership with GOI, contribute to an environment where Iraqi's can develop representative and effective institutions capable of meeting the needs of the Iraqi people, creating the conditions for the Rule of Law, defeating the terrorists and irreconcilable insurgents, bringing other insurgents into the political process, reducing sectarian tensions, and denying Iraq as a safe haven for terror.

  • First would come increased security. Then would come political progress, and with it, the building of a reliable army and police force. And all that- if it worked- would take many, many years.

  • The quietly restated US goal was to achieve a modicum of stability, to keep Iraq together, and to prevent the war from metastasizing into a regional bloodbath.

_________________________________________________________

Iraq Lessons Learned

  • If you look at the premises behind the Iraq war, they were: It will be quick, it will be easy, it will be cheap, it will be catalytic.

  • Rumsfeld's tragic flaw was his inability to change course after making mistakes.

  • We have become reactive. With our fortified bases and our few secured major supply routes linking them, we have immobilized ourselves and cut ourselves off from the battlefield- the populace of Iraq.

  • Encouraging democracy is at odds with the larger goal of stability.

  • Like Clinton, Obama also would face the prospect of a de facto alliance between the military and congressional Republicans to stop him from making any major changes.

  • US Commanders have tended to seek strategic gains- that is, winning the war- without taking tactical risks. They ventured little and gained less. By making protection of their own troops a top priority, and by having them live mainly on big bases and only patrol neighborhoods once or twice a day or night, they had wasted precious time and had ceded vital terrain to the enemy.

  • It wasn't quite put to Bush in such blunt terms at the Pentagon meeting, but the council of colonels had concluded that the US had invaded Iraq on the bases of a series of flawed assumptions- that Bush and others wrongly assumed that it would be a war of liberation, that Iraqi's would take over power quickly, and that the country would remain more or less orderly, with a functioning police force. Likewise, the Bush Administration was operating on some assumptions that badly needed to be examined. Can the Iraqi government survive? Is it under the control of Iran? Does it have staying power? Are Iraqi security forces truly a national institution? Will they crack if the civil war spreads and deepens? Will neighboring powers, especially Iran, become more involved in Iraq? And, most important of all, are we past the point of no return? If so, how do we reposition ourselves to minimize the danger? If not, what do we do next? Does anybody in Iraq believe we will stick around? The point was that until these questions were thought through, the United States wouldn't have a strategy; it would have only aspirations.

_________________________________________________________

Counter-Insurgency (COIN)

  • The way to defeat an insurgency campaign is not to attack the enemy but instead to protect and win over the people.

  • The aim of a counterinsurgency campaign is to destroy the enemy- but often by isolating him and making him irrelevant rather than killing him.

  • The first basic step in counterinsurgency is to implement a strategy founded on the concept that the civilian population isn't the playing field but rather the prize, to be protected at almost all costs.

  • 28 Articles: Fundamentals of Company Level Counterinsurgency by Kilcullen, Australian Counter-Insurgency Expert

    • In Counterinsurgency, killing the enemy is easy. Finding him is nearly impossible.

    • Rank matters far less than talent- a few good men led by a smart junior NCO can succeed in counterinsurgency, where hundreds of well-armed soldiers under a mediocre senior officer will fail.

    • The most fundamental rule of counterinsurgency is to be there....This demands a residential approach: living in your sector, in close proximity to the population rather than raiding into the area from remote, secure bases. Movement on foot, sleeping in local villages, night patrolling- all these seem more dangerous than they are. They establish links with the locals, who see you as real people they can trust and do business with, not as aliens who descend from an armored box. Driving around in an armored convoy, day tripping like a tourist in hell, degrades situational awareness, makes you a target, and is ultimately more dangerous.

    • Don't obsess on fighting your foe. Only attack the enemy when he gets in the way.

    • Don't waste time and money attempting to build a local replica of the US Military, have local forces mirror the enemy, not US forces.

    • The cornerstone of any COIN effort is establishing security for the civilian populace.

  • Kiss of Death operations: American forces move into an area, find cooperative locals, and then, after some improvement of security, pull out of the area. Then insurgents return and kill those who cooperate with us.

  • Draw down your conventional forces and rely more on Elite Special Operations.

  • A major departure from current policy: Get rid of extremists by working with them.

_________________________________________________________

Petraeus’ COIN Doctrine

  • Petraeus’ three rules for subordinate commanders:

  1. We are in a race against time, give the locals you deal with a stake in the new Iraq, and don't do anything that creates more enemies than it removes.

  2. Get the troops out among the people, protect them, stay with them, and they will begin to talk to you. And even those who won't talk might help in other ways such as anonymously spray-painting orange arrows on asphalt to indicate where a bomb had been placed the previous night.

  3. Get rid of periodic presence patrols and provide twenty-four/seven security, get out of big bases and deploy smaller units in neighborhoods. He was ambivalent about increasing the number of troops because he believed that those already in Iraq were being used incorrectly.

  • Petraeus 3 Strategic Tasks:

  1. Get the Big Ideas Right.

  2. Communicate the big ideas through your organization.

  3. Ensure proper execution of the big ideas.  

  • Odierno: "I looked back: What would Saddam Hussein do?”

  • COIN

    • Secure the people where they sleep.

    • Never leave home without an Iraqi.

    • Look beyond the IED: get the network that placed it.

    • Give the people justice and honor...We talk about democracy and human rights. Iraqis talk about justice and honor.

    • Get out and walk- that is, patrol on foot. Get out of your Humvees, get out of your tanks, your Brads, and walk around. Stop commuting to war...the concept of a Super FOB is more damaging to the war effort than any Abu Ghraib or Haditha incident ever could be.

_________________________________________________________

The Insurgency Conundrum

  • The more you protect your force, the less secure you are. In other words, it said, you need to get out among the population, because in the long run, that is the way to improve security. If military forces stay locked up in compounds, they lose touch with the people who are the ultimate arbiters of victory.

  • The more force you use, the less effective you are. That is, you are trying to establish the rule of law, and the way to get there is through restraint, whenever possible. Aim for normalcy.

  • Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction. This was perhaps the hardest lesson for the can do, gung-ho US military to take on board. Don't let yourself be provoked into action, because it may be counterproductive.

_________________________________________________________

Information Warfare

  • We use information to explain what we're doing on the ground. The enemy does the opposite- they decide what message they want to send, and then design an operation to send that message"-Armed Propaganda.

_________________________________________________________

Misc Quotes

  • Some of the most effective US Officials were Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and George Shultz. The commonality among them, was that they were basically hawks who drew extensively on the ideas and initiatives of the doves.

  • To be effective, the so-called pacification program during the Vietnam War had to meet two conditions: a) it had to provide security for the population; b) it had to establish a political and institutional link between the villages and Saigon. Neither condition was ever met.-Henry Kissinger.

  • Avoid emotional responses to an operational event...Knee jerk reactions waste energy, effort, and are in most cases counterproductive.

  • All Armies get it wrong at the beginning, the question is who adapts fastest.-Michael Howard, British Military Historian.

  • The fight is won by those who get violent the fastest.-Steele.

  • To be a good average is safer than to be gifted above your fellows. This also tends to be true in the US Army.

  • American Enterprise Institute: the right-wing think tank that is the mecca of American neoconservatism. 

  • We came to the conclusion that we had been conducting a conventional war against an irregular enemy.-Petraeus.

  • To those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you.-Obama.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Chronology

  • 2009: General David Petraeus takes Command of US Forces in Iraq and initiates COIN.-Gamble by Ricks.

  • 2008: US Force Surge in Iraq.-Gamble by Ricks.

  • Mid- 2006: insurgents in Iraq are detonating about 1000 roadside bombs every week.-Gamble by Ricks.

  • 22 Feb, 2006: The Samarra Mosque Bombing in Iraq ignites a sectarian Civil War, with US-Coalition forces stuck in the middle of it.-Gamble by Ricks.

  • 20 Mar, 2003: Operation Iraqi Freedom begins.-Gamble by Ricks.

_____________________________________________________________________________