War of the People: Counterinsurgency Education for Non-Commissioned Officers
Abstract
This article examines the need for a system to educate the Australian Army NCO corps about counterinsurgency operations. The author argues that, as the ‘strategic corporal’ becomes ever more important, properly educating them becomes equally important. This education will offer an assurance of capability to commanders that simply relying on Australia’s non-existent ‘natural predisposition’ for COIN cannot. The author warns that with such education must come a commensurate devolution of authority to such junior leaders in order to empower them to succeed on COIN operations.
Welcome to the COIN CFE boys!!! I’m glad you’re here because now we finally have some instructors with real counterinsurgency expertise!
- Commandant Multi-National Force–Iraq
Counterinsurgency Center for Excellence1
Introduction
The myth that the Australian soldier is a ‘natural’ counterinsurgency (COIN) expert has been perpetuated both within the Australian Defence Force and the US Armed Forces. The truth is that the ‘natural’ counterinsurgent does not exist—history shows that armies develop counterinsurgency skills through a process of experience and deliberate education and training. There is a perception that the Australian soldier will just ‘adapt’ to this style of operations, based on his mastery of ‘conventional’ or ‘high level’ warfare. The recent example of the difficulties encountered by the world’s premier ‘conventional’ force, the United States Armed Forces, in Iraq and Afghanistan shows how fraught with peril that assumption is. Within the Australian Army, our officer training continuum is only beginning to incorporate COIN education. The non-commissioned officer (NCO) continuum does not address it at all, despite Australia currently being an active participant in two coin wars—albeit in a limited form. Australian soldiers can be as good as any other in the world when it comes to this complex, frustrating, and extremely demanding form of war—if given the right training and education. Reading the essays within the recent Australian Army Journal special edition about counterinsurgency,2 it was apparent to this author that there was very little consideration given within a major thematic edition of the Journal to the problem of educating Australian Army ncos about coin. An aim of this article is to address this important consideration.
This article will describe the need for coin education for the Australian Army nco Corps. coin education is the vehicle whereby our nco Corps will move from the rote learning and drills of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (ttp) on to developing the philosophical and conceptual understanding required for success in contemporary coin campaigns. US General David Petraeus has said regarding junior leaders and coin: ‘...it is the junior commissioned and non-commissioned officers who often have to make huge decisions, sometimes with life-or-death as well as strategic consequences, in the blink of an eye’.3 The understanding required to make ‘huge decisions’ should be informed by sound education, not instinct based on learnt drills. Examination of how our major ally has tackled the problem of closing the coin education gap during recent operations is useful when developing an Australian coin education program.
The United States and COIN within the Iraq Theatre of Operations
Six months after the removal of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq it became clear that there was not going to be an easy end to the violence across the country, with the situation descending into a protracted insurgency confrontation. The problem for the majority of the US forces—with the possible exception of the US Special Forces, who had retained some previously gained skills in counterinsurgency warfare techniques—was that their officers and ncos had trained for ‘conventional war’ for decades. This meant that many units had difficulty planning and taking appropriate action for the fight that was developing. Compounding the problem was domestic political pressure within the United States that arose due to the US public being accustomed to short, relatively inexpensive (at least, in terms of friendly casualties) wars with a defined outcome. The need to change the mindset of officers deploying into the Iraq theatre of operations (ito) became apparent to the commanding general of mnf-i, General George W Casey, Jr. He realised that he could not reach back into the military schools in the continental USA (conus) and effect change quick enough to have any impact in his fight on the ground within a reasonable timeframe.
The Development of 'In-Theatre' COIN Education
General Casey decided to attack the problem on two fronts. Firstly, he dictated to the Brigade Combat Team (bct) commanders in the field his unambiguous commander’s intent regarding the need to train Iraqi security forces, include them in the fight and help them to take ownership, while at the same time adapting their own tactics towards a coin fight. His second ‘line of operation’ was to establish an in-country academy, the coin cfe, just north of Baghdad at Taji. General Casey made it mandatory for all combat leaders, US Army and US Marine, company to brigade level, to attend a coin Leaders Course (clc) prior to taking over their areas of operations.4 There were no exemptions to the requirement for attendance at this course—a situation that continues to this day. Attendance at the clc shaped the mindset of US Commanders deploying to Iraq for the coin fight that awaited them. It ensured commanders and staff understood the real nature of the problems they faced on every street, market, mosque and highway in Iraq and facilitated the effective takeover of battlespace by incoming units.
COIN Education Development in Conus
Efforts within conus matched those underway within the ito. In 2006 US Marine Corps General James Mattis and US Army General David Petraeus founded a joint coin school within the Combined Arms Centre at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center focused on ‘integrating coin education into training establishments, doctrinal support, (particularly the integration of the new us publication fm 3-24 / mcwp 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency), and providing advice to leaders and organisations both military and civilian’.5
Results
Evidence of US success began to appear in late 2006 when the 1st BCT of the 1st Armoured Division took responsibility for the city of Ar Ramadi in the Western Iraq Al Anbar Province. They ‘combined traditional coin principles with precise, lethal operations’ and enabled what is now referred to as the ‘Anbar Awakening’.6 This province, formerly regarded as lost to the insurgents, became a model for future bct operations throughout Iraq. This success, while certainly not solely attributable to the coin cfe, suggests that the coin education offered did have an impact upon the officers that attended the clc. Many officers, interviewed during and after their tour in Iraq, remarked how their decisions were influenced by the instruction they had received at the coin cfe.7
Empowering Junior Leaders Through COIN Education
During 2006 and 2007, the coin cfe became an efficient way of delivering ‘just-in-time’ (jit) education to officers; however, it was not addressing the nco training gap. The nco instructors at the coin cfe began a survey of troops in the field specifically targeting the quality and depth of pre-deployment training and its validity to the soldiers once deployed.8 It was evident from their survey that ncos required training that drilled down deeper into the theories and principles of coin. The ncos were frustrated due to their lack of understanding about coin, particularly during the dangerous first few months of their tour. Presentation of the findings of this survey to the Commandant of the coin cfe included a suggested solution—educate the platoon commanders and ncos. The idea was to provide them with some nested training that paralleled what their commanders were learning in Taji, so that they in turn could teach their soldiers. General Casey agreed, and a junior leaders coin course for us personnel was trialled, validated and became part of the mandatory training for junior leaders prior to deployment into Iraq.
The initial duration of this course was only one day, but it had an immediate impact on the target audience. It consisted of educative lessons and a few current ttp that gave soldiers who had never deployed to Iraq a new focus regarding the pre-deployment training.9 For veterans, it gave explanations of some aspects of previous deployments and operations. As one Sergeant First Class from the 1st Cavalry Division remarked to instructors at the conclusion of a day’s training: ‘the light went on about a few things we did during my last deployment’. Another nco commented that the subject matter in the lessons had given him a form of ‘tactical compass’. This is exactly what the team from the coin cfe had set about to do: educate the junior leaders so that they could talk on even terms with their officers and, armed with this new knowledge, educate their soldiers so that fundamental mistakes were not repeated on the street. Many of the junior leaders who received instruction from the coin cfe began asking the obvious question: ‘Why didn’t this training occur in the US so that we get it earlier?’
The Status of US COIN Education
The US Army’s ‘Road to War’ concept—where the training and education of all elements of a bct are laid out from warning order through to deployment into theatre and then back to home station—is well established. One of the main challenges for training developers is the standardisation of instructional content into their leader and training processes. coin is being taught formally and informally, and is integrated into training scenarios and exercises. An emerging issue, familiar to Australian military schools, is resistance to add more ‘mandated’ training into various curricula that are already under other pressures to be reduced in length.10 Another problem is that the current level of nco coin training within courses in conus is ad hoc.11 These problems would be familiar to any Australian officer or nco who has ever tried to influence the content of a course or block of instruction. Despite these pressures, the coin school at Fort Leavenworth has worked on ‘nesting’ coin into existing training rather than requesting additional hours of instruction. This has had some positive outcomes to date—the school’s Operations Officer, Major Niel Smith, has observed that ‘the force is hungry for coin training, and everywhere it is given, it is extremely well received’.12 This matches the author’s experience since returning to Australia, and is an opinion shared by most of the Australian embeds that served at the coin cfe in Taji.13
Cointemporary COIN Education in the Australian Army
Unlike the US examples discussed above, this author’s research has revealed that there is no systemic institutionalisation of COIN education within the Australian Army. At least two training institutions in the Australian Defence Force are identified as having fully formalised COIN into their curriculum: the Australian Command and Staff College (ACSC)14 and the Defence Intelligence Training Centre (DINTC).15 Other organisations touch on COIN in various fashions, but it is invariably ad hoc and often ‘hidden’ within other subjects.16 The inclusion of COIN into the course for middle level officers at ACSC marks a significant shift in contemporary officer education for Army.17 The course incorporates COIN on several levels by superimposing irregular problems over conventional ones, as well as seeking to find practical solutions to the complexities suggested by Adaptive Campaigning.18 Included into the curriculum alongside more ‘traditional’ case studies topics such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq are studies of the less conventional ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan after September 11 and the Second Battle of Fallujah. Senior Army staff are adamant that such education must continue at the ACSC and be further refined to reflect current and future operations.19 While efforts to introduce such training on the staff course are important, such an inclusion is only a small part of the full continuum of officer training within the Australian Army. ACSC is beginning to address the training gap for senior officers, although the elective at ACSC does not extend to company and squadron commanders—arguably the level of command that most need it, as sub-unit command normally occurs prior to attendance at Staff College. But even this level of effort exceeds that currently existing within the formal Australian Army NCO training continuum.
COIN Education for Australian Army NCOS
We need wisdom as well as expertise at all levels of the conflict, not just the strategic. Training and doctrine is often enough in modern warfare but training is very limited in utility in a highly unpredictable situation, therefore revising training and doctrine is important but preparation through education is irreplaceable.
- Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely20
General Kiszely’s statement clearly echoes the need for formal COIN education as a cornerstone for soldiers to gain a true understanding of the operations they may be conducting. A solid foundation in education (the why) rather than focusing on the traditional methodology of TTP and best practice (the how) is what will lead to understanding rather than rote application of learnt drills in response to a situation. If an NCO is going to be an effective ‘default planner’ and be able to assume command in the absence of officers, they must necessarily have a sound understanding of the environment in which they will operate. While Commander of the Combined Arms Center, then Lieutenant General David Petraeus developed fourteen observations that he considered were ‘relevant to the broader challenge of conducting counterinsurgency operations in a vastly different culture than our own’.21 Any COIN operations the Australian Army conducts will inevitably be amongst cultures different to our own. Three of Petraeus’ observations underpin the argument for COIN education for Australian Army Junior Leaders. They are summarised below:
- Observation 12 – Remember the strategic corporals and lieutenants. Commanders have two major obligations to these junior leaders: first to do everything possible to train them before deployment for the various situations they will face, and second, try to shape situations to minimise the cases in which they have to make hugely important decisions quickly.
- Observation 13 – There is no substitute for adaptive flexible leaders. The key to many of the successes in Iraq has been the junior leaders who have risen to the occasion and taken on tasks for which they had little or no training.
- Observation 14 – A leader’s most important task is to set the right tone. Setting the right tone, and communicating that tone to subordinate leaders and troopers is absolutely critical for every leader at every level.22
General Petraeus’ observations may seem obvious to some readers—and the term ‘adaptive’ has been an Australian Army buzzword for some time now, but are we truly comfortable that we are giving our junior leaders the tools to be ‘adaptive’? We cannot expect our junior leaders to be adaptive and flexible if we have not given them the knowledge that will assist them in making the right and timely decision. This knowledge can only come from genuine COIN education. No Australian General Officer would want to be placed in a situation where they are expected to make strategically important decisions without a sound understanding of the nature of the problem they face. This is, quite rightly, why the Australian Army invests a considerable amount of effort in educating General Officers. Why should a junior leader, who may well be placed in a similar position, not be given the same privilege of understanding? Failure to address this issue makes the repeated reference to the proverbial ‘strategic corporal’ in Army’s publications and various speeches by senior Defence officials purely rhetorical.
A recent paper published in the Marine Corps Gazette highlights a groundswell of discontent among us Marine NCOs concerning the lack of professional education within the NCO curriculum.23 It states that Marine SNCOs are being educationally cheated and set up for failure. This argument is aimed squarely at the system’s inability to prepare platoon sergeants for the complex operations they now face, and such thoughts have some resonance with our own Army’s education system. A review of the Australian NCO education continuum reveals a glaring lack of COIN specific education.24 The key to flexible, adaptive leadership is a sound understanding of the underpinning knowledge that shapes a given situation. This is true whether in peace or war, civilian or military practice. If the true nature of the operation is not immediately apparent, education can help compensate for any training shortfalls by helping junior leaders in knowing how to think.
The Way Ahead
A logical place for the Australian Army to begin delivering COIN education to soldiers would be as part of the Subject One courses, which all future NCO leaders have to complete. These courses are all conducted at the Warrant Officer and Non-Commissioned Officer Academy at Canungra in Queensland. Embedding COIN education into these courses would facilitate a gradual escalation of instruction in line with the progression of each course and rank. For example, the corporal’s course might only have two to four periods of instruction, with further levels of instruction on the sergeant’s course. This training would focus on the imperatives and paradoxes of COIN with an emphasis on understanding how military operations embed into a ‘whole-of-government’ approach for success. There should also be an equal emphasis on understanding insurgents, their aims and their organisational structure. The aim during this level of instruction should be to make sense of the COIN puzzle for the junior leader. The culmination of this instruction would be on the warrant officer’s course, with features such as advanced level instruction by subject matter experts, a scenario based Tactical Exercise Without Troops (TEWT), and incorporation of instruction on use of the Military Appreciation Process.
The close proximity of the DINTC at Canungra could provide the opportunity for both organisations to ‘dovetail’ training. Some of the intelligence course outcomes (such as Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield products) could be incorporated into the scenarios on the warrant officer and sergeant courses.25 The value of such a scenario is the knowledge that can be taken back to every unit in the Army, adding another dimension to unit training. This would assist in developing an ever-expanding core of critical COIN ‘thinkers’ at all levels within the Australian Army. Of course, this is only one example of how Army might introduce COIN education into the NCO education continuum. Ultimately, the way adopted is less important at this stage than acknowledgment of the need and agreement upon a suitable outcome. This would be a positive step towards orientating our education towards both our current and likely future fights—which is vital if we are to be an organisation that ‘continually improves’ in the complex environment depicted in Adaptive Campaigning.
Conclusion
The old maxim ‘soldiers don’t lose wars, officers do’ is not applicable in a COIN fight. The soldier’s contribution to winning or losing a COIN fight is important because it is their actions that have an immediate impact on the contested population in the ‘war amongst the people’ that typifies COIN. This article has highlighted the need for COIN education for Australian Army NCOs. Australian soldiers need education on the ‘why’ of such warfare so that they can prosecute the ‘how’ and ‘when’. An army’s backbone is the quality of its junior leadership, and NCOs form the core of that junior leadership within the Australian Army. COIN warfare is complex, unpredictable, protracted and lethal. It is bewildering that our junior leaders spend many hours sitting in a lecture room being ‘taught’ pre-deployment hyperbole, yet we cannot spare a few periods of instruction on a subject course in order to gain some real professional development and understanding of how to lead soldiers in the current fight. There is a compelling and enduring requirement to address COIN education to ensure that relevant and worthwhile outcomes are being achieved. It is only then that we might begin to make a reality out of the current myth of the Australian soldier as a COIN expert.
Endnotes
1 Greeting by the Commandant to the first Australian embedded personnel to arrive at the Multi-National Force – Iraq COIN Center for Excellence (CFE) in Taji, Iraq, June 2006. The colonel was expecting to receive Australian COIN ‘experts’ to instruct at his academy.
2 Australian Army Journal, Special edition: Counterinsurgency, Vol. V, No. 2, Winter 2008.
3 David Petraeus, ‘Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Iraq’, Military Review, January 2006, p. 9.
4 General Casey would relate these reasons behind his decision to found the COIN CFE during his lecture to the students attending the COIN Leaders Course in Taji. He attended every course without fail to deliver his intent to commanders, unless weather prevented him from flying. On at least one occasion during this author’s deployment he arrived by road when flying was impossible because he felt so strongly about the importance of the course and the need to talk directly to his officers.
5 Taken from the original charter for the Joint US Army/US Marine COIN Centre, drawn up by Generals Petraeus and Mattis in 2006.
6 N Smith and S McFarlane, Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point’, Military Review, March-April 2008.
7 Conversations with US officers during follow up visits to operational areas by COIN CFE staff (including the author). These usually occurred two to three months after Relief in Place / Transfer of Authority had been conducted by a BCT. The purpose was to gauge the effectiveness and relevance of the COIN CFE curriculum (continuous improvement cycle) through validation in the field.
8 A questionnaire given to NCOs and lieutenants was combined with oral interviews. This occurred during ‘survey missions’ to the field designed to gather data on pre-deployment training relevance and to identify any training gaps that existed.
9 Validation of the course was conducted in the ITO initially, with newly arrived units. It was then trialled during pre-deployment training. General Casey was enthusiastic for the concept and wanted the training for his men. The positive feedback and enthusiasm for the training by US Junior officers and NCO surprised even those who had championed the concept at the very beginning.
10 Observations made by staff at the USA/USMC COIN School, taken from both discussions with the author during a visit to Fort Leavenworth in May 2008, and subsequent communications for the purpose of this article.
11 Assessment offered by a senior staff member at the USA/USMC COIN School at Fort Leavenworth to the author during an interview, May 2008.
12 Ibid.
13 The author, after speaking to the majority of Australians who served at the COIN CFE, concluded that there was general agreement on this point. It also matches what former Australian staff members from the COIN CFE in Taji and Kabul have found within the Australian Army during the delivery of ad hoc COIN training since their RTA.
14 The author made several visits to the Australian Defence College in Canberra during the writing of LWD 3-0-1 Counterinsurgency, (2008). During those visits Colonel Roger Noble was interviewed and made himself available for subsequent discussions for the purpose of gathering information to support this article. The author gratefully acknowledges his support and cooperation.
15 Taken directly from the training package delivered to DINTC personnel and also telephone conversations with Captain Nicholas Rose, Land Intelligence Wing at DINTC.
16 The DINTC effort is particularly vital, as intelligence is one of the most vital components of COIN operations. The DINTC package aims to provide trainees with an overview of the asymmetric adversary environment outside of conventional war. It provides an introduction to insurgency and counterinsurgency but centres on providing Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) products for commanders.
It also drills down to typical insurgent and terrorist TTP in order to assist personnel to understand threats and indicators of attacks. This represents a sound beginning in COIN education for Intelligence Corps NCOs and soldiers and at the very least, acceptance of the need for this type of education.
17 In 2008, the Australian Command and Staff College introduced COIN as a course elective, but with the dual purpose of writing the second draft of LWD 3-0-1 Counterinsurgency as the outcome of the elective. This unusual process was adopted because the original draft of the publication, produced in 2007, was unsatisfactory. The then Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, was determined to see the publication ready as a matter of priority. The ACSC Course Members received instruction on theory and practice of ‘modern’ COIN and then, under the tutorship of Dr Michael Evans and Colonel Roger Noble, began the process of piecing the chapters together.
18 Adaptive Campaigning is the Australian Army’s principal warfighting concept.
19 Author’s discussions with Colonel Roger Noble, Director of Studies – Land, ACSC, June 2008.
20 Comment made by Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely, Director UK Defence Academy, during a speech at the Swedish and UK COIN Symposia, March 2008.
21 David Petraeus, Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Iraq’, Military Review, January 2006, p. 3.
22 Ibid.
23 Richard Choquette, ‘Bridging the Gap, Marine Corps Gazette, July 2008; p. 22. The purpose of his article was to highlight the perceived deficiencies in current Marine Corps NCO development. Choquette was referring to current course curriculum not keeping pace with operations and the impact on key NCO appointments while in the field on active duty.
24 Information regarding current training conducted on subject courses was gained through conversations between the author and the package master at Canungra.
25 Furthermore, the Intelligence Course Members might gain valuable practice in the briefing and delivery of their products through participation in the Subject One scenario based training. Similarly, the Subject One course members would benefit and learn from engagement with the intelligence staff.
