ReMastering the US Army’s Narrative

Soon to be(?) Lt Gen H.R. McMaster has a well-earned reputation as one of the best and brightest of the U.S. military’s ‘warrior scholars.’ His commentary on the contemporary defense climate is generally speaking both cogent and astute. However, some of his recent comments reflect a chasm that exists between what the US Army is trying to sell as its master narrative, and what it is actually doing.

At a recent event at the Brooking’s Institute McMaster outlined what he saw as the ‘four fallacies’ currently permeating in the discussions of future wars. They are (according to the linked article):

“The return of the revolution in military affairs,” a theory thought discredited in Iraq — “it’s like a vampire,” he said — with its promise that long-range sensors and precision strikes will let air and sea forces win wars cleanly and bloodlessly (for us) on their own. 

“The Zero Dark Thirty fallacy” that we can solve our problems almost bloodlessly with Special Operations raids, “something akin to a global swat team to go after enemy leaders.” 

What might be called the Mali Fallacy (my words, not his) that we can rely on allies and local surrogates to do the fighting on the ground while the US provides advisors and high-tech support. 

All three fallacies, he said, begin with a core of truth: Air Force, Navy, Special Operations, advisors, and allies are all impressive and essential capabilities, but we can’t count on them to prevail alone.

The fourth fallacy, by contrast, McMaster considers just plain “narcissistic.” The idea that the US can “opt out” of certain kinds of conflict — say, counterinsurgency, or ground warfare in general — without giving our adversaries credit for what they may be able to force us to do. Invading Afghanistan seemed ludicrous on September 10, 2001, after all, and inescapable on September 12th. 

While McMaster and others at the conference are right to point out that there are very significant political currents permeating these precepts in the ether of the Washington policy establishment, he’s not 100% correct in calling them fallacies either. Nor does the Army’s narrative fit squarely within a clear counter argument to combat these fallacies.

First off, he’s absolutely correct about the ‘Zero Dark Thirty fallacy’, an over-reliance and a correspondingly exaggerated expectation of what special operations are capable of, as well as the dangers of thinking that repetitive raiding can work in the long-term, is a serious issue. It is absolutely something that should be tempered against both by discerning scholars and experienced practitioners. But to differing degrees I’m not sure I agree with his other three points. My issue with the third and fourth points kind of run together and in essence are about how we understand choices and how we manage and manipulate situations. To really tackle my disagreement with his thinking on those points would require a much longer discussion, but simply put I’m not sure I agree with McMaster’s conception of the scope or range of political choices available to policy makers today.

What really concerns me here is his first point, which to my mind reflects the Army’s current problem with shaping its own message or narrative in an era where it may be the lowest hanging fruit in the defense budgeting process. Today the Army is building its narrative on the premise that the US will inevitably find itself in another drawn-out messy land war, and there is certainly evidence to support this logic. McMaster’s criticism of other services going back to the RMA-driven thinking that future war will be easy, as fallacy; and that down and dirty ugly wars cannot be avoided

Would be far more credible if the Army weren’t showing tell-tale signs of reverting to its own RMA – and even pre-RMA – thinking. McMaster’s own (soon to be former) command the Maneuver Center of Excellence has taken the lead in developing the ‘Ultra Light Combat Vehicle’. Right as the Army is giving away their COIN-proven MRAPs, (Lord of War-style) to any law enforcement agency that will take them including small town police departments and campus security at universities. These two decisions do not appear to reflect the same line of reasoning as to the likely future character of war. A logical gap the Army leadership seems to try to ignore completely by pretending that MRAP never happened, and that UCLV is actually replacing the ‘legacy Humvee‘.

In the recent past the US Army had clear and concise narratives articulating what they expected to be the challenges of future warfare, the challenges they presented matched the capabilities they procured. In large part this was because the Fulda Gap, and later the Kuwait/Iraq desert presented strong illustrative examples, examples that seemed to fit with the operational concepts they developed and the combat systems they sought to procure. The problem today is that the systems they’re trying to procure and the systems they’re trying to liquidate reflect a logic that diverges substantially from the talking points. 

They want to retain manpower and force structure based on a need for large-scale COIN or stability operations, while purchasing light, fast, and maneuverable equipment for high-end ‘combined arms’ conflict. In times of severe budget reductions an argument could be made that the US Army trying to have it both ways just isn’t going to work, but even if we’re willing to let them try to make that argument they have to do a better job of it. McMaster can resent the Navy and Air Force for having their Fulda Gap (the Persion Gulf and Strait of Hormuz) and their Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts (the South and East China Seas). He can also resent the fact that they’re procurement systems reflect the very logic that fueled Army and Air Force procurement in the 1980s and 1990s.

But if he (or more precisely his service) wants to win the actual debates and make a more convincing case in budgetary battles, in the current political climate the rhetoric needs to match the underpinning logic. If ‘hard’ wars amongst the people are the future the Army needs to explain why the service’s procurement priorities are less about protection and survivability and more about speed, maneuver, and firepower. McMaster is hardly alone in this, in fact his boss Gen. Odierno the Army Chief of Staff is the one who really needs to explain why his service is preparing “projects that it will have to deploy rapidly and in small formations in future conflicts.“ Or why the service needs to reverse the decisions it made to trade ‘mobility for survivability’ 

if they are so sure that future wars will be ‘wars amongst the people.’ Which recent experience has shown require survivability, not mobility. Because in this era of fiscal constraints services cannot simply say “[T]his requires first reestablishing our core warfighting competencies in combined arms maneuver and wide area security.” They need to demonstrate why that ‘core competency’ is going to be needed in the near future, and if not why it needs to be preserved indefinitely.

Institutional memory and the retention of these skills is extremely expensive, in what might be the most tightly contested budget environment of the last 50 years the services need to be more compelling in their arguments about retaining institutional knowledge and skill sets. With a political climate this passive and a willingness to accept more and more international crisis without active participation, the electorate may be willing to let more capabilities whither. Accepting as more fiscally prudent that regeneration of those skills when finally needed – while painful – might be the more frugal option.

One thought on “ReMastering the US Army’s Narrative” 

S P DUDLEY says: 

General McMaster is completely correct: the US cannot simply “opt out” of messy conflicts, as too many of the potential flashpoints are simply going to occur in developing and underdeveloped regions that are rife with sectarian and factional violence and where “unconventional” warfare is the norm.

We can’t always predict where the next wars are, and to deliberately leave yourself without a capability to prevail in such conflicts means you’re always behind the learning curve. This is EXACTLY what happened in Iraq.

During Vietnam the US paid a high price in lives and treasure to develop a counter-insurgency doctrine that worked against the VC and NVA, finally developing “Clear and Secure” tactics by 1969. However the war became so politically radioactive that the lessons learned were never codified into Army doctrine. The Army pulled out, and with the odds on the ground now even the North changed their game from unconventional to conventional and rolled into Saigon with as many AFVs as the Syrians had at the time.

In Iraq most Army units were never trained in CI prior to going in theatre, and what experience they had in unconventional warfare was done playing cops in Bosnia and Kosovo. Gen. Petraeus basically dusted off VN-era tactics of Clear and Secure and had the 10st start using them in Mosul but it took years for the rest of the Army to adapt, again wasting time, treasure and lives in the process. By the time we mastered Iraq the war was lost in the minds of Americans, even though it wasn’t lost in the field. Again.

It’s foolish to just train for conflicts against Lowest Common Denominator enemies such as North Korea (and even there we don’t take that mission seriously anymore). You need to develop tactics and training against the difficult, raw missions that you DON’T want to fight and learn how to prevail in those wars, not just hope to God some politician doesn’t send you where you don’t want to go.

Otherwise if you don’t do this, your enemies will seek to make every war you fight as much like the Vietnam War as they possibly can: they know you don’t think you can win that one, so they’ll fight you time and time again just like that until you stop being stuck on stupid. 

We find ourselves on the cusp of another significant military intervention in Iraq. When last we met here in 2003 it was over the question of the threat posed by the supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein. Today it is in response to the use of a social media as a weapon of mass effect. If the calculus for war was incorrect at that time, to varying degrees of negative consequence depending on the party, then we should take the time to consider whether the threat against which we propose to act is correctly framed and understood. Read, reply here and join the discussion at #CCLKOW.

At the very heart of what the military professional does is the moral authority of the sober calculus between war and peace. Taking life being the first and most basic restriction we commonly acknowledge, the justifications to do so must be serious. We should not be in the business of asking fellow citizens to do such things lightly. Hence such ideals and guides as just war. Rather, however, than consider our moral correctness in responding to the Group Formerly Known as — and Now Referred to as — [1], I would prefer to examine the claims that THEIR actions of late demand a response which makes use of, as one pundit put it, “every force at our disposal.” Does THIS GROUP’s actions rise to the level of an act of war?

The execution of lone citizens, bereft of any consolation of camaraderie or deed in defence, in desolate surroundings, is just one type of the extreme perceived brutality THAT GROUP seeks to impose upon its enemy audience. Even as many eschew the actual images, just knowing about the event now is enough to feel the agony that situation must have evoked and inspire justified anger. And right we should feel that way, for the sake of our humanity – if you do not, I should like to weep for you and maybe also put you in a cage.

Certainly these images shock, offend, anger and infuse with righteousness. As individuals.

As individuals is not, however, the way in which the state is meant to think and behave. The state represents the whole, and for good reason. The whole has an entirely different set of needs and qualities. The whole is greater than the sum of our fears and grievance; it is also the sum (and more) of our strengths.

Let’s be clear. Lone Americans or Britons or Japanese, et al, will always be vulnerable to THEY WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED. Their respective countries? I am going to be bold and say no. [2]

I have in the past discussed the use of traditionally non-threatening acts such as auto accidents as acts of war. As well, I have examined the role of sub rosa conflict. I am perfectly happy to grant the asymmetrical actor his due in pursuing war according to the means he finds handy and effective. [3]

However, whether such ‎acts are a reasonable threat to the target societies – and thus demand a use of force in keeping with such a challenge – has not been at the forefront of the discussion. Because the actions are so brazen and awful they have assumed a weight and authority which seems unassailable. That is a dangerous path to the use of force and the recourse to war.

Worse, while THEY pose little risk to the West, THEY (and some others) do seem to be causing a problem for the region. THEY (and other factions) are killing their own in a heart-breaking fashion, in numbers we mostly dare not consider. And it is for this that the misconstruction of their threat is really problematic. There is a role to be played in support of local action. But that sensible action will be steamrolled by rationalised vengeance without a proper accounting of the threat. If we do not correctly apprehend the issues then our policies, strategies, and tactics will be flawed and unlikely to achieve much beyond continued chaos.

I suspect this is less a piece about a specific set of questions and more taking a moment to question the consensus. However, in honour of my place, I’ll frame the essential question in these terms:

Are we over-e‎gging the threat pudding? And in the process, might we be forgetting the roast?

Notes:

1. The article linked above is an interesting analysis of the legitimacy of THAT GROUP’s political claims regarding statehood by Lieutenant Colonel Tyrell Mayfield, a U.S. Air Force Political Affairs Strategist, There is much concern about how to name THEM and why.

2. Well, qualified no – we could certainly flail ourselves into submission.

3. And let’s be clear, the strong have every reason to use low spectrum hybrid options – the asymmetry of their obvious power superiority is at times a hindrance to action. Putin could not INVADE Ukraine, the mismatch alone would be the outrage, no matter the provocation. But he can do so in the gray zone of plausible deniability. Whether HE poses a larger threat hangs on whether Ukraine is part of a revanchist march (yes) or a means to distract domestic criticism (no, but pay attention).)