I've always been a proponent of the idea that any good soldier (or Marine) can make a good anti-insurgent, so we don't need specialized low-intensity warfare troops. What we need, I've argued, is an officer corps with officers who have counter-insurgency as a career path to make sure we have officers capable of issuing the correct orders whether we must fight conventional high intensity or low intensity counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare:
So instead of thinking we need troops specially trained for COIN, we should really look to making counter-insurgency a separate career path in the officer corps like armor, infantry, and artillery (among many others) are now. If those who lead regular troops (and who require far more time to train) are ready from day one of a war, we can adapt our campaigns quickly.
Well, that's a problem, nothwithstanding our victory in Iraq using COIN approaches:
The military’s effort to build a seasoned corps of expert officers for the Afghan war, one of the highest priorities of top commanders, is off to a slow start, with too few volunteers and a high-level warning to the armed services to steer better candidates into the program, according to some senior officers and participants.
The groundbreaking program is meant to address concerns that the fight in Afghanistan has been hampered by a lack of continuity and expertise in the region among military personnel. But some officers have been reluctant to sign up for an unconventional career path because they fear it will hurt their advancement — a perception that top military leaders are trying to dispel as they tailor new policies for the complex task of taking on resilient insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Each military branch has established career paths, and the type of focus envisioned by the program would take people off those routes.
That's unacceptable. The military shouldn't be moving on, even as we're still involved in a major counter-insurgency campaign. I'm in favor of a balanced ground force, capable of fighting all along the conflict spectrum, but come on! Win the war we're in.
Set up career paths so the hard won knowledge of COIN is not lost to all but Army archivists.
UPDATE: Strategypage explains the problem:
Career and family concerns, and lack of enthusiasm at the top, have crippled an effort to improve the planning and coordination of American operations in Afghanistan. Last year, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan came up with a plan to form a staff of 912 officers and NCOs (the Afghanistan Corps) that would serve for five years, and thus provide continuity at the top for operations there. The 912 personnel would also be selected from the best personnel available in all the services. But, so far, only 19 percent of those positions have been filled.
The plan is that the staff would spend five years in Afghanistan to provide continuity in leadership. A good idea. Five years away from family and career is a prospect scaring off volunteers. The military can help out by making such a tour part of the career path of officers and NCOs, as I wrote.
The family aspect is another matter. But why can't we leverage reachback concepts to allow the 912 staff members to rotate in and out of Afghanistan while staying part of the same staff? Can't we use communications technology to minimize the problems of maintaining a cohesive staff despite lack of physical proximity? rotating staff between Afghanistan and CONUS (and perhaps to Persian Gulf locations, too, if the family can go there too) in order to reduce family separation concerns, while the military personnel remain part of the working staff, is hardly ideal, but it is better than not having the staff at all.
