America’s modern wars : understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam

446 Pages·2015·10.65 MB·English

by  Christopher A. Lawrence

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2015 by
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Copyright 2015 © Christopher A. Lawrence
ISBN 978-1-61200-278-1
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Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: The Iraq Casualty Estimate
Chapter 2: The Art and Science of Counterinsurgency Warfare
Studies
Chapter 3: The Acid Test: Predicting the Present
Chapter 4: Force Ratios Really Do Matter
Chapter 5: Cause Really is Important
Chapter 6: The Two Together Seem Really Important
Chapter 7: Other Similar Work
Chapter 8: Outside Support and Structure of Insurgencies
Chapter 9: Rules of Engagement and Measurements of Brutality
Chapter 10: Sanctuaries, Border Barriers and Population Resettlement
Chapter 11: Estimating Insurgent Force Size
Chapter 12: The Value of Elections
Chapter 13: The Influence of Terrain on Insurgencies
Chapter 14: Other Issues
Chapter 15: The Burden of War
Chapter 16: A Model of Insurgencies
Chapter 17: Other Theorists
Chapter 18: The Other Side
Chapter 19: Withdrawal and War Termination
Chapter 20: Relating a Force Ratio Model to Iraq
Chapter 21: Relating a Force Ratio Model to Afghanistan
Chapter 22: Relating a Force Ratio Model to Vietnam
Chapter 23: Conclusions
Chapter 24: Where Do We Go From Here?
Chapter 25: A Tale of Two Books
Appendix I: Briefing Slides from January 2005
Appendix II: The Bosnia Casualty Estimate
Appendix III: List of Cases
Appendix IV: Force Ratios
Appendix V: Force Ratios as Divided by Political Concept
Appendix VI: Results of Testing the Model Back to Data
Appendix VII: Characteristics of Selected Modern COIN Barriers
Appendix VIII: List of all 83 Cases by Indigenous Government Type, The
Presence of Elections, Duration, Winner and Type of
Insurgency
Appendix IX: Staying the Course (an analysis of duration of
insurgencies)
Appendix X: Data on 62 Insurgences used for the Test of Anthony
James Joes Theory
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Dedication
T
his book is dedicated to my father, Colonel William A. Lawrence, who
served two tours in Vietnam. It is also dedicated to all those who died in
the Vietnam War, including his friends Captain Robert Maluenda Caliboso and
Major Robert William Arnold. It is unfortunate that the sacrifice of almost
60,000 U. S. servicemen and women had not been better used to educate future
generations on the problems of fighting insurgencies.
Acknowledgments
I
would like to thank all the people who helped me in the various insurgency
studies. First and foremost are my predecessors at The Dupuy Institute, the
late Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy (USA) and Major General Nicholas Krawciw
(USA, ret). If not for them, I would not have been in a position to do this work to
begin with.
All of our work came about as a result of a series of government contracts.
Therefore, of equal importance are E. B. Vandiver, former Director of the Center
for Army Analysis (CAA) and Andrew Marshall, Office of the Secretary of
Defense, Net Assessment. Also of importance is the contractual support we
received from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), courtesy of the National
Intelligence Council (NIC). In particular, I would like to thank Major General
John R. Landry (USA, ret.), military advisor to the NIC.
This work could not have been done without the able assistance of the staff
and consultants of The Dupuy Institute. They include Richard C. Anderson,
Alexander Dinsmoor, C. Curtiss Johnson, L. Jay Karamales, Nicolas Klapmeyer,
Ciro Pabon, Dr. Victoria Plamadeala-Johnson, Nicolas Reinhart, Dr. Dmitri
Ryabushkin, Susan Sims, Blair Trimble, Eugene Visco and Dr. Shawn
Woodford. As this book was based upon a series of a dozen reports that we did,
almost by default some sections of this book were effectively co-authored by our
staff, especially Curt Johnson and Richard Anderson.
We would also like to thank others who helped along the way, including Dr.
Andrew Birtle, Dr. Ivo Feierabend, Dr. Andrew D. Hossack, Dr. Michael
Spagat, Robert Smith and Chad Yost.
Introduction
When we found those boys in that bunker with their equipment, it
became a whole new ballgame. The way these guys fight is different
than the insurgents.—PFC Troy Langley, TF 2-2, 1st Inf. Div., during
the Second Battle of Fallujah, November 20041
O
n 4 April 2004, the U.S. Armed Forces deployed 2,000 troops around the
smallish city of Fallujah in Iraq. This was a turning point in a developing
insurgency in Iraq. Four days earlier, on 31 March 2004, four American
contractors had been ambushed and killed as their convoy passed through the
town. They were then pulled from their SUVs by a crowd, and their bodies
burned; two of the bodies were hung on a bridge in the center of town. The
gruesome ambush was tailor-made for television, and of course, images of it
were broadcast around the world. Until that point, the developing Iraqi
insurgency, which some U.S. leaders denied was an insurgency, had cost the
U.S. 304 troops killed in combat over approximately 11½ months.2
The U.S. felt it had to respond and that response was to take Fallujah. Earlier
that week the U.S. Army had also lost five soldiers in nearby Habbaniya, but it
was the broadcast deaths of four U.S. Blackwater contractors that galvanized the
administration to take in a city and against an insurgency that it previously all
but ignored.
To accomplish this, the U.S. Marine Corps initiated Operation Vigilant
Resolve. On the night of 4 April, Fallujah was surrounded by about 2,000 troops,
including Iraqi allies. The Marines attacked the following day, and after three
days of fighting, had secured about a quarter of the city. They then declared a
ceasefire and began negotiations with various Iraqis in the area. Their own Iraqi
allies had deserted at the start of the fight, and so a new Iraqi militia was formed
to police Fallujah. On 1 May, the U.S. forces withdrew from Fallujah, handing
over control of the city to the thousand or so new militiamen. The First Battle of
Fallujah was a confused, unresolved affair that had cost the U.S. at least 39
killed.3 For all practical purposes, it was an insurgent victory. Other areas of Iraq
erupted at the same time, resulting in some 126 U.S. combat casualties for the
month. The previous month U.S. combat losses had only been 35 killed.4
Meanwhile, in the comfortable, idyllic offices of The Dupuy Institute, I
hammered out an unsolicited proposal entitled “Proposal for Casualty Estimation
in the Iraq War.” It was emailed to the U.S. Army’s Center for Army Analysis
(CAA) on 20 April 2004. The director of CAA, E. B. “Van” Vandiver,
immediately responded and the contracting process was initiated.
At The Dupuy Institute we had been watching the developing Iraq situation
with some concern. We noted the statement of General Eric Shinseki on 25
February 2003, that the U.S. needed several hundred thousand troops to occupy
Iraq. We noted the deployment initially of less than 125,000 troops into Iraq.
This deployment did not include either of our two military police brigades.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, began on 19 March
2003. The violence of the conventional the war effectively ended on 14 April
2003, after a loss of 103 killed in combat and 27 non-combat deaths.5 During the
following four weeks, there were only four U.S. troops killed in action in Iraq.
From the middle of May until the middle of July (two months), the combat was
slightly more intense—31 combat deaths. Still, we remained concerned.
On 17 July 2003, I requested that my office manager start assembling a
database of U.S. losses in Iraq, as “I don’t think this is over yet.” Nine months
later, I was ready to send out a proposal to look further into what we might be
facing in Iraq. The contract for that work was awarded effective 24 August 2004.
But, the battles for Fallujah were not over. The U.S. again moved against the
city on 7 November This time, in a well-telegraphed offensive, U.S. forces first
surrounded the city using over 10,000 Marines and Army troops under command
of the Marine Corps. The insurgents left a holding force in the city, while many
fled elsewhere. The U.S. initiated its attack, Operation Phantom Fury, the
following day. Fallujah was entered carefully and each block was systematically
cleared while the insurgents bravely fought a futile defense. By 12 November, it
was claimed that the U.S. held 80 percent of the city.6 The process was
continued until December 23, when the last major combat occurred, and the city
was brought under U.S. control. Fallujah had been cleared and the U.S. had
proven itself victorious in conventional warfare once again. There were 95 U.S.
soldiers and Marines killed in the fighting, and 560 were wounded. Our allied
Iraqi forces lost 11 men, with 43 wounded. The Iraqi insurgents had lost 1,350
killed (U.S. claim) and 1,500 captured.7 The U.S. began pulling forces out of
Fallujah in January 2005, but maintained control of the city through the autumn
of 2007.
The counterinsurgent leadership pounced on this news to proclaim victory in
Fallujah as early as 15 November 2004. This included the interior minister of
Iraq, and the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), Lt.
General John F. Sattler. By 19 November, the MEF commander was effectively
declaring victory in Iraq. “We feel right now that we have … broken the back of
the insurgency, and we have taken away this safe haven.”8 The optimism now
was not just a political facesaving effort on the part of U.S. senior civilian
leadership but included the declarations from many elements of the U.S.
military, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the senior command
in Iraq and the commanding general at Fallujah.
General Sattler continued, explaining that the insurgency, in losing Fallujah,
had lost “your location and your means for command and control,”
[Y]ou lose your lieutenants, which we have taken out of the Zarqawi
network over the course of the last almost three months on a very precise
basis… . And you also lose the turf where you’re operating, the town that
you fell comfortable moving about in, where you know your way about.
Now you’re scattered. I believe, I personally believe, across the country,
this is going to make it very hard for them to operate. And I’m hoping
that well continue to breath down their neck.9
It was a part of a repeated effort by some in the U.S. military to try shape the
war into the war that they wanted to fight, as opposed to recognizing what type
of war they were fighting.
Meanwhile, at The Dupuy Institute, we were putting the final touches on our
Iraq casualty estimate and conducted our first brief of our estimate on 28
December 2004. This estimate would lead to an extended series of studies, first
on Iraq, then later on researching insurgencies in general and analyzing their
basic nature. The final step in this process, tying all the work together in this
book, was begun in September 2009.
NOTES
1. Jackie Spinner and Karl Vick, “Troops Battle for Last Parts of Fallujah.” The Washington Post (14