Part I:The Iraqi Insurgency, 2004-2007

ithin months of the Coalition's victoryagainst Iraqi forces and the collapse ofSaddam Hussein's regime in April

2003, the U.S. forces and their allies suddenlyfaced a general insurgency that sought to end theforeign occupation of the country. U.S. adminis-trative policies and its military response to theinsurgency only exacerbated the movement. TheCoalition Provisional Authority focused onempowering Iraq's Shi'a majority at the expenseof the formerly dominant Sunni minority.Fearing disenfranchisement and a loss of statusin the new Iraqi state, many Sunnis joined theinsurgency. The heavy-handed response of U.S.units such as the 4th Infantry Division (USA) toinsurgent attacks further inflamed hostility to theU.S. presence in the country.

In the spring of 2004, Marines from the I

Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), command-ed by Lieutenant General James T. Conway,redeployed to Iraq where they assumed respon-sibility for providing security to Iraq's western al-Anbar Province. At this time, the insurgency con-stituted the single greatest obstacle to stability inIraq, and the Marines of I MEF soon wereengaged in battles with insurgents in the cities ofFallujah and an-Najaf. The insurgency encom-passed a hodgepodge of different groups,including former Ba'athists, secular nationalists,religious extremists, and foreign groups such asal-Qaeda in Iraq. The insurgency was not entire-ly a Sunni movement, as Shi'a groups such asthose led by religious extremist Muqtada al-Sadrrose up against Coalition troops in Najaf in thesummer of 20O4. Taking full advantage of theirurban environment, insurgents used an array of

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tactics against American forces, includingremote-activated land mines, rocket-propelledgrenades, and suicide bombers. Supply convoysbecame especially vulnerable. Furthermore,insurgent groups became particularly adept atdeploying the mass media to build an anti-American consensus and generate sympathy fortheir cause.

By 2006, the insurgency had transformed froma general uprising against the Coalition forcesinto a sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shi'aforces. The Coalition devised and implemented anumber of strategies and tactics to combat thethreats, ranging from large-scale use of firepow-er and force to conducting counterinsurgencyoperations and building local security forces. Fora range of reasons, some of these efforts suc-ceeded while others failed. U.S. Marines wereinvolved in several of these operations andplayed leading roles in a number of critical bat-tles against the Iraqi insurgency, including Najaf,Ramadi, and the two battles for Fallujah.

The following two selections present anoverview of the insurgency and conflict thatmany came to label civil war in Iraq. Carter A.Malkasian's essay, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq:May 2003-2007," provides an excellent survey ofthe major events that shaped the insurgency andU.S. efforts to combat the threat between 2003and 2007. James D. Fearon's article, "Iraq's CivilWar," examines how the Iraqi insurgency trans-formed into a religious civil war, focusing on thecomplexities of a conflict that involved theUnited States and its Coalition allies and Iraq'sSunni and Shi'a populations.

Counterinsurgencyin Iraq: May 2003-January 2007by Carter A. MalkasianCounterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, 2008

fr 4he United States' campaign in Iraq markedits second major counterinsurgency cam-paign in 40 years. The U.S. military

attempted to adapt to the situation it found inIraq, drawing upon lessons from history and itsown operations. However, in the first four yearsof the conflict, it could not suppress the insur-gency, which prompted President George W.Bush to revise his strategy in January 2007.

The reasons behind the lack of progress fromMay 2003 to January 2007 may not be clear forsome time, if at all. To some extent, Americanattempts to adapt neglected the sectarian divi-sions in Iraq. The key elements of the U.S. strat-egy—democratization and the construction of anational (and consequently predominantly Shi'a)army—did nothing to placate the Sunni minori-ty, who backed the insurgency and sought topreserve their political power against both theoccupation and the emerging Shi'a government.This strategy did not make success impossiblebefore 2007, but it certainly made it harder tosuppress the violence.

The Outbreak of the Insurgency

The insurgency in Iraq broke out over thesummer of 2003, following the Coalition's light-ning victory over Saddam Hussein's standingforces in March and April.' Sunni Arabs, wholived primarily in Baghdad and western andnorthern Iraq, represented the overwhelmingmajority of the insurgents. In general, the insur-gents sought to compel the United States,viewed as an occupier, to withdraw from Iraq;and to recapture some of the political power andeconomic benefits that the Sunnis had lost to theShi'a Arabs with the demise of Saddam Hussein's

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regime.2 U.S. plans for democracy promised toplace the Shi'a, representing 60 percent of thepopulation, in the most powerful political posi-tion. The large role played by exiled Shi'a lead-ers on the newly constructed Iraqi GoverningCouncil (an interim advisory body), the dissolu-tion of the old Iraqi Army (which Sunnis hadlargely officered), and the prohibition of mem-bers of the Ba'ath Party from working in the gov-ernment (de-Ba'athification) exacerbated theSunni feeling of marginalization. An extreme ele-ment of the insurgency, the al-Qaeda-affiliatednetwork of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wanted tocreate their own Islamic state within Iraq thatmight be able to support Al-Qaeda's activitieselsewhere in the region. Zarqawi purposefullytargeted Shi'a in order to draw reprisals upon theSunnis and instigate a civil war.3 Zarqawi's net-work, later known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),held the allegiance of the foreign fighters andIraqi terrorists of most concern to the UnitedStates.

In the summer of 2003, the United States had150,000 military personnel (in five divisions) inIraq, which together with 13,000 personnel fromthe United Kingdom and other allied countries(in two divisions) formed Combined Joint TaskForce 7 (CJTF-7), under the command ofLieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. The alliedforces were known as the "Coalition."

Ambassador Paul Bremer controlled theCoalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which wasresponsible for governing Iraq and guiding itsprogression toward democracy, a foremost goalof the Bush administration. Many U.S. leaders,including Bremer, believed that democracy rep-resented a natural antidote to the extremism ofZarqawi and other terrorists. Furthermore, themost respected Shi'a religious leader, AyatollahAli Sistani, with strong popular Shi'a backing,pressured Bremer to hold direct elections assoon as possible.4

The United States and its military were unpre-pared to confront the insurgency that developed.Since the end of the Vietnam War, both the U.S.Army and Marine Corps had focused on learningrapid maneuver and combined arms in order tofight a conventional war, instead of the

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patrolling, bottom-up intelligence collection andminimization of force generally considered nec-essary for successful counterinsurgency.Training, such as at the Army's National TrainingCenter in the California desert, dealt with defeat-ing conventional mechanized opponents. Nocomprehensive doctrine existed for counterinsur-gency. Expecting to fight a conventional war, theU.S. Army fielded armored and mechanized bat-talions that were heavy on M1A1/M1A2 Abramstanks and M2A2 Bradley fighting vehicles, butlight on infantry (armored and mechanized bat-talions contained 500 to 600 personnel). Suchorganization made it difficult to thoroughly patrolor interact with the population. The Marineswere somewhat better off; their battalions con-tained 900 infantry: every battalion had a teamdedicated to human intelligence collection; andthere had been intensive training for urban com-bat since the late 1990s.

Neither Major General Sanchez nor GeneralJohn Abizaid, commander of Central Command,promulgated a plan to counter the insurgency.When confronted with insurgent attacks, the fiveU.S. divisions reacted• differently, but with a ten-dency toward conventional-style operations andheavy-handed tactics. Units conducted raidsbased on scant intelligence and applied firepow-er loosely. Operating north of Baghdad aroundSamarra and Tikrit (S'alah-ah-din Province),Major General Raymond Odierno's 4th InfantryDivision acquired a reputation for heavy-handed-ness. Instead of trying to secure the population,his commanders launched large-scale sweeps toroll up insurgents and Ba'athist leaders, firedartillery blindly to interdict insurgent activity("harassment and interdiction fires"), purposeful-ly detained innocents to blackmail their insurgentrelatives, and leveled homes to deter peoplefrom supporting the insurgents.5 Such actionsfurther alienated the Sunni population. Otherdivisions operated in a similar pattern. InFallujah, troops from the 82d Airborne Division,feeling threatened, fired into mass gatherings onboth April 28 and 30, 2003, killing 13 civiliansand wounding 91. In November, Sanchez con-ducted a series of sweeps and air strikes, such asOperation Iron Hammer, meant to crush the

insurgents. Major General Charles Swannack, thecommander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said:"This is war... We're going to use a sledgeham-mer to crush a walnut."6

The operations of Major General DavidPetraeus' 101st Airborne Division, working in thenorth of Iraq (Ninewa Province), diverged fromthis trend. Petraeus considered securing the pop-ulation to be the key to effective counterinsur-gency and concentrated his entire division inMosul, the largest population center (1.8 million)in the province. Determined to minimize harm tothe population, before approving any operationshe would ask his commander, "Will this opera-tion take more bad guys off the street than it cre-ates by the way it is conducted?"7 Rather thanundertaking large sweeps, his troopers operatedout of outposts in the heart of the city andfocused on collecting detailed actionable intelli-gence for raids against insurgent leadership.Meanwhile, Petraeus interacted with the Sunnielements of society, even holding his own localelections to draw them into the political process.Insurgent attacks stayed low during the division'stenure. Unfortunately, the following unit boastedonly a third of the lOlst's manpower, and the sit-uation deteriorated.

The one method that characterized all U.S.operations was high-value targeting. Elite specialoperating forces enjoyed carte blanche to cap-ture and kill insurgent leaders. The conventionalforces let the same tactic drive their operations.Every battalion, brigade, and division developeda high-value targeting list detailing the mostwanted insurgents in their area of operations.Intelligence collection assets were devoted tofinding insurgent leaders.

It is worth noting that the British, who con-trolled the Coalition forces around Basrah, ai-Amarah, and an-Nasiriyah, adopted a more cir-cumspect approach than the Americans.Applying the lessons of a half-century of coun-terinsurgency, the British patrolled in small units,rigorously collected intelligence, and used fire-power sparingly. In general, British and otherWestern European forces tried to maintain a lightfootprint in cities to avoid upsetting the locals. Asearly as September 2003, British generals made

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the development of local Iraqi forces a priority.For example, in 2004, the entire Argyll &Sutherland Battalion was dedicated to trainingthem. Some of the first effective Iraqi unitsappeared in the British operating area.8Unfortunately, the light approach toward secur-ing the population would later allow militias togain control of the city, which would have neg-ative side effects in 2007.

The First Battle of Fallujab andthe Mabdi Uprising

For the most part, small-scale roadside bomb-ings, mortar shelling, and fleeting skirmishescharacterized insurgent activity in 2003. By early2004, the insurgency was gaining strength. Poorstrategic decisions made it explode.

The I Marine Expeditionary Force (1 MEF)took over al-Anbar Province from the 82dAirborne Division in March 2004. On March 31,insurgents and people in Fallu;ah murdered fourAmerican civilian contractors and hung theirbodies from a bridge over the Euphrates.Against the advice of Major General James Mattisand Lieutenant General James Conway (theMarine commanders), the Bush administrationordered an offensive to clear Fallujah.Determined to signal their resolve, they made thedecision with little consultation with the IraqiGoverning Council and allowed insufficient time(just days) to evacuate civilians, gather intelli-gence, and construct a public relations campaignto mitigate the negative effects of attacking aSunni city.9 Indeed, instructions from Sanchez,Abizaid, and Rumsfeld endorsed harsh militaryaction, thereby de-emphasizing the importanceof minimizing civilian casualties.10 Of the fourIraqi battalions assigned to the assault, only 70Iraqi soldiers from the 36th Commando Battalionaccompanied the 2,000 Marines (two reinforcedinfantry battalions) that led the offensive, hardlylessening Sunni feelings of oppression.

The ensuing offensive ignited widespreadSunni outrage. Viewing it as an attack on theirsociety, Sunnis poured into Fallujah from otherSunni cities. When the Marines stepped off, theyencountered heavy resistance from roughly 2,000

insurgents. Insurgents coordinated mortars, vol-leys of rocket-propelled grenades, and machine-gun fire in defense of their positions. Marinecommanders risked prohibitive casualties unlessthey reverted to using artillery, air strikes, andtanks as per their conventional combined armsdoctrine. Such firepower was applied selectivelybut, nevertheless, civilians died (the IraqiMinistry of Health estimated 220 for the first twoweeks of fighting).11 Insurgent propaganda andArab media exploited these casualties to inflameopposition to the Coalition. The Coalition had noresponse. The Iraqi Governing Council cameunder tremendous pressure to stop the fighting.Sunni members threatened to resign if Bremerdid not initiate cease-fire negotiations. With thedemocratization process in jeopardy, on April 9,the U.S. government halted the offensive.12Fighting around the Marine bridgehead persisteduntil April 30, when Conway pulled the MarinesOut of the city.

At the same time that Fallujah exploded, aShi'a uprising shook Coalition control oversouthern Iraq and threatened to ignite a nation-al resistance. The Shi'a did not oppose theCoalition to the same extent that tile Sunnis did,largely because their leaders now held power.However, most Shi'a still wanted the occupationto end. Muqtada Sadr, a radical young Shi'a cler-ic with a widespread following who had notbeen given a role in the Coalition's politicalprocess, tapped into this vein. His militia, Jayshal-Mahdi, was organized around poor, youngShi'a males throughout the country. On April 4,he called the militia into the streets when Bremershut down one of his newspapers and arrestedone of his lieutenants. Thousands of Jaysh al-Mahdi attacked Coalition and Iraqi compoundsin Najaf, an-Nasiriyah, al-Kut, Baghdad, a!-Amarahm, and even Kirkuk. Fighting spread toBasrah, Karbala, and Hillah. Over tile next fewmonths, the Coalition fought to regain control ofthe southern cities. The only exceptions were inBasrah and al-Amarah, where British patrols andBritish-advised Iraqi forces quelled the uprising.

As a result of the Mahdi uprising and the firstbattle of Fallujah, attacks throughout the countryjumped from just under 200 per week in the first

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three months of 2004 to over 500 per week in thesummer.13 Fallujah grew into an insurgent baseof operations and staging ground for attackselsewhere in the country. Additionally, inSamarra, Ramadi, Baqubah, and Baghdad, insur-gents exerted control over tile population andmassed in groups of 20 or more for attacks onthe Coalition. The insurgency enjoyed wide-spread popular support among the Sunni popu-lation. Sunnis perceived that the insurgents hadwon a great victory in Fallujah, forcing an embar-rassing withdrawal upon the United States. A pollin late April 2004 found that 89 percent of Iraqisconsidered the Coalition to be an occupyingforce.14 Fighting with Jaysh al-Mahdi in Najaf(the holiest Shi'a city) and Sadr City (a Shi'sneighborhood in Baghdad) temporarily ended inJune, hut Sadr and his forces maintained controlof the two urban areas.

The breadth of violence made it abundantlyclear that the Coalition could not secure Iraqwithout more numbers. Ahizaid and theAmerican commanders had been looking to tileIraqis to supply those numbers, rather thanrequest U.S. reinforcements, which was not con-sidered politically feasible and might deepen theperception of occupation among the Iraqi popu-lation. Since the dissolution of tile old IraqiArmy, tile Coalition had focused on creatinglocally based forces, known as the Iraqi CivilDefense Corps (renamed the Iraqi NationalGuard after June 2004), to help provide securitywithin Iraq while a new Iraqi Army was built.

Success in developing tile Iraqi NationalGuard and other local forces depended entirelyon the attitudes of the local population. NationalGuard battalions based Ofl tile Kurdish militia(peshmerga) or Shi'a militias, performed ade-quately. Battalions based on Sunnis did not.Disaffected from the Iraqi government and angryat the Coalition, at this stage in the war, Sunnisgenerally sympathized with the insurgency andhad no intention of fighting their fellow tribes-men or family members.

There is little doubt that the U.S. militarycould have done a better job advising and train-ing the Iraqis. Few commanders embeddedadvisers with local forces. Yet, at this time, even

when Americans did, Sunnis remained reluctantto fight. One of Mattis' most progressive ideaswas to adapt the combined action program(CAP) of the Vietnam War to Iraq. A platoon inevery Marine battalion was trained to operatewithin an indigenous unit. Each had received amonth of special training in Arabic, Arab culture,and Soviet weapons handling. Three of Mattis'seven Marine infantry battalions embedded theirCAP platoons with local forces. U.S. SpecialForces also attempted to build local Sunni forces,cultivating a relationship with the warlike AlbuNimr tribe west of Ramadi. All this effort, how-ever, yielded few results. In a quarter of allengagements, Sunni units with advisers fled oreven surrendered. For example, during fightingin the town of Hit in October 2004, elements ofthe 503d Iraqi National Guard Battalion, operat-ing directly alongside Marines, fled from posi-tions defending the city bridge.15 Most SunniNational Guard and police forces refused towork with advisers at all, let alone contribute toCoalition operations. By the end of October2004, only two companies of the original sevenNational Guard battalions established in al-Anbarhad not deserted or sided with the insurgency.

The failure of local forces, combined withwidespread insurgent activity, caused Coalitioncommanders to look to the Iraqi Army as theanswer to their lack of numbers. Conway said atthe end of that hard-fought summer: "The situa-tion will change when Iraqi Army divisionsarrive. They will engender people with a senseof nationalism. Together with an elected govern-ment, they will create stability."16

Stemming the Tide

On June 28, 2004, the United States grantedIraq sovereignty and created the Iraqi InterimGovernment under Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.Shortly thereafter, General George Casey suc-ceeded Sanchez as the commander or MultiNational Forces-Iraq (the new Coalition head-quarters). Additionally, Petraeus returned to Iraqto command Multi National Security TransitionCommand-Iraq (MNSTC-I) and oversee the cre-ation of the Iraqi security forces (roughly 300,000

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men), including 10 Iraqi Army divisions (roughly120,000 men).

Casey took immediate steps to give theCoalition strategy a purpose hitherto lacking. Hewanted to transition authority over security ineach province to the Iraqis. For this to occur,Najaf, Baghdad, Fallujah, and other centers ofviolence would need to be dealt with one byone. As they went about doing so, Casey and hiscommanders paid careful attention to the mis-takes of the past year, taking much more care totailor military action to political priorities.

The blueprint for better counterinsurgency,and what would become known as the clear-hold-build approach, took form when Sadrunleashed a second uprising in Najaf on August6, 2004.17 Casey and Qasim Dawood, Allawi'snational security adviser, carefully balanced mili-tary and political measures to coerce Sadr intobacking down. While the 11th MarineExpeditionary Unit (augmented by two U.S.Army battalions, four Iraqi battalions, and scoresof elite U.S. snipers) battled Sadr's 1,500 fighters,Dawood negotiated with Sistani with the hope ofinducing Sistani to intercede and end the fight-ing. Political negotiations took precedence overthe military offensive, which was repeatedlystopped to placate Sistani and ensure that fight-ing did not endanger the sacred Imam AllMosque. After three weeks, Sistani marched intoNajaf with thousands of his followers and Sadragreed to disperse his militia and surrender themosque. Allawi and Casey immediately poured$70 million in reconstruction and compensationfunds into the city. Najaf would remain quiet forthe next three years, and Sadr started pursuingpower through political means instead of violentones.

Next, Major General Peter Chiarelli's 1st U.S.Cavalry Division cleaned up Jaysh. al-Mahdiresistance in Baghdad, and Major General JohnBatiste's 1st U.S. Infantry Division reassertedpresence in Samaria. The big show was Fallujah,though, where 3,000-6,000 insurgents wereensconced. Casey pressed forward only after thefull support of the Iraqi Interim Government hadbeen obtained, which. took months and meantthat the operation could not take place until after

the U.S.- presidential elections in early November.Allawi slowed the pace of planning in order tohold extensive discussions with obstinateFallujah leaders and other Sunni notables. Thesediscussions exhausted all diplomatic options,placing Allawi in a stronger political position touse force.

New Marine generals, Lieutenant GeneralJohn Sattler and Major General Richard Natonski,listened to Conway and Mattis about the lessonsof the first battle. Measures were taken to lessenthe political impact of the firepower needed todefeat so many insurgents. All civilians wereencouraged through leaflets, radio announce-ments, and a whisper campaign to leave the city.In the event, the Coalition would find only 5,000civilians in the city out of a population of250,000. Additionally, Sattler prepared to pre-empt insurgent propaganda with his own pressreleases, enabling him to take the initiative inshaping the news stories. Finally, in order tolessen the image of occupation, Sattler andNatonski, in parallel with Allawi, pressed forIraqi Army units to accompany American forcesin the assault.'8 The 1st Iraqi Intervention ForceBrigade and 3d Iraqi Army Brigade joined the 1stMarine Regiment, 7th Marine Regiment, and U.S.Army Blackjack Brigade for the operation.

The offensive, known as Operation al-Fajr,kicked . off on November 7, 2004, followingmonths of air strikes on insurgent defenses andcommand and control. nodes. Coalition tacticswithin Fallujah were those of a straightforwardconventional battle. Four Marine infantry battal-ions methodically cleared Out the insurgentdefenders in the wake of two U.S. Armyarmored battalions that spearheaded the assault.As in the first battle, the strength of insurgentdefenses compelled the Marines to call inartillery fire or close air support. Marine squadsaggressively cleared buildings, making use ofgrenades, AT-4 rocket launchers with thermobar-ic warheads, and, most of all, well-drilled urbancombat tactics. By the end of December, theinsurgent resistance had come to an end.Roughly 2,000 insurgents were killed, wounded,or detained in the course of the battle.19

After the battle, the Coalition initiated an

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intensive effort to work with the leaders ofFallujah and rebuild the city. The StateDepartment representative, Kael Weston, workedhand in hand with political and religious leaders.They built a city government and motivated thepeople of Fallujah to participate in the politicalprocess. Approximately 65 to 80 percent of thecity's population participated in three electoralevents of 2005. Over 2005 and 2006, the Iraqigovernment provided a total of $180 million incompensation for damage to homes while theCoalition engaged on major water, sewage,health, and power projects. One thousand to twothousand Marines continued to operate in thecity, alongside roughly 1,500 soldiers of the IraqiArmy. When sectarian violence . broke out inBaghdad in 2006, Sunnis fled to Fallujah becausethey considered it the safest Sunni city in Iraq.

Counterinsurgency Reforms

With Baghdad and Fallujah secure, Caseyturned to improving the Iraqi security forces. Inlate 2004, Casey conducted a review of his cam-paign plan. The review, guided by the counterin-surgency expert Kalev Sepp, concluded that theformation of the Iraqi Army needed to be accel-erated. Nowhere was the need for more forcesclearer than in Mosul, where security collapsedoutright in November 2004 after one Stryker bat-talion was sent to Fallujah. Insurgents coordinat-ed attacks against police stations and 5,000police surrendered en masse, forcing theCoalition to reassert its presence in the city.Rather than deploy more U.S. forces to Iraq, theanswer was thought to lie with the Iraqi Army.Najaf, Baghdad, Samarra, and Fallujah showedthat, when properly advised, the predominantlyShi'a and partly Kurdish Iraqi Army would standand fight. The planners viewed the Iraqi Army asthe linchpin of effective counterinsurgency.From their perspective, the Iraqi Army couldboth provide vital manpower and gather intelli-gence better than Coalition forces. Plus, Iraqi sol-diers would not be perceived as occupiers,undercutting a major cause of the insurgency. Itwas thought that the Iraqi Army could eventual-ly shoulder the burden of counterinsurgency

operations, allowing the Coalition to withdraw.Accordingly, Casey directed Coalition forces toshift their focus from fighting insurgents to train-ing Iraqis.

The Coalition and Interim Iraqi Governmentwanted the Iraqi Army to be a national force thatintegrated Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunni. Few Sunnisjoined, though, and the army became mainlyShi'a. In order to accelerate Iraqi Army develop-ment, MNF-I (Casey's headquarters) created thetransition team concept—b to 12 advisersembedded into every Iraqi Army battalion,brigade, and division. Additionally, Marine andArmy battalions partnered with Iraqi battalions(roughly 500 soldiers) in order to assist in theiroperations and training. Eventually, the Iraqi bat-talion would operate independently, with onlyits advisers working with it daily.

In parallel to developing the Iraqi Army,General •Casey and Ambassador ZalmayKhalilzad made every effort to ensure that thedemocratization process took hold. The CPA'stransitional administrative law (TAL) scheduledthree electoral events for 2005: the election of atransition government in January responsible fordrafting the constitution; a referendum on theconstitution in October; and the election of apermanent government in December. The estab-lishment of a legitimate democratic governmentwas considered central in cutting support for theinsurgents and building cooperation across thesectarian communities.2°

As the Iraqi Army developed and democrati-zation pressed forward, Casey shifted his atten-tion to securing Iraq's borders. Iraqi politiciansconsidered this essential to stopping the flow ofSunni foreign fighters into the country; plus,according to Sepp and other counterinsurgencyexperts, blocking foreign assistance was part ofeffective counterinsurgency. The two major oper-ations that ensued refined the clear-hold-buildapproach of 2004 and showcased improved U.S.counterinsurgency techniques.

The first was the clearing of Tal Afar inSeptember 2005 (Operation Restoring Rights). TalAfar, a city of 250,000 people located 40 milesfrom Syria, had been used by AQI (al-Qaeda inIraq) as a staging ground for foreign fighters

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entering Iraq since early 2005. The 3d ArmoredReconnaissance Regiment (3d ACR), underColonel H. R. McMaster, and two brigades of the3rd Iraqi Army Division carried out the assault onthe city. McMaster had directed that civilians beevacuated from the town in order to allow hisforces to use artillery and attack helicopters toovercome insurgent makeshift fortifications.Groups of perhaps hundreds of insurgentsmassed to counterattack the advancing U.S. andIraqi forces, but the Abrams tanks and Bradleyfighting vehicles tore them apart.21

After the battle, McMaster positioned his sol-diers in 29 outposts throughout the city to holdthe cleared areas. From these outposts, his forcessaturated Iraqi neighborhoods with patrols.Once civilians had returned to the city, the useof force was minimized. Second Battalion, 325thAirborne Infantry Regiment, killed no civilians atall, which won the appreciation of the locals.Building intelligence on insurgents was madeeasier through the cooperation of the significantShi'a minority in Tal Afar.22 Similarly, McMastercould recruit a police force because tile Shi'awere willing to serve, whereas the Sunnis stillconsidered the Iraqi Army and police to be theirenemy.23

The second operation was the clearing of al-Qa'im (Operation Steel Curtain) in November2005. After the second battle of Falujah, insur-gents affiliated with AQI had fled to al-Qa'im, acity of 200,000 that lies on the Euphrates River atthe Syrian border, and turned it into a base ofoperations. Two reinforced Marine infantry bat-talions (2,500 Marines) and one Iraqi battalion(roughly 500 soldiers) cleared the city fromNovember 5 to 16, killing roughly 100 insur-gents.24

Like Tal Afar, the operations after the battlewere more important than the battle itself.Lieutenant Colonel Dale Alford, commander of3d Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, dispersed hisMarines into small sub-units, integrating themthoroughly with the Iraqi Army brigade. Everyplatoon lived and worked with an Iraqi platoonin one of 12 outposts. Tile platoons conductedintensive satellite patrolling both day and night.Living close to the population generated intelli-

gence and forced the Marines to learn how tointeract with them.25 Even more important wasthe determination of the Albu Mahal tribe tokeep AQI out. AQI had impinged upon their tra-ditional control over the al-Qa'im area, causingthe tribe to align itself with the Coalition afterhaving fought as insurgents over the previoustwo years. Within three months of the comple-tion of Operation Steel Curtain, the Albu Mahalhad devoted 700 tribesmen to the resident IraqiArmy brigade and 400 to a newly establishedpolice force.26

Off the battlefield, Casey took steps to insti-tute the lessons learned since mid-2004. Theseincluded setting up a counterinsurgency acade-my at Taji (just north of Baghdad) that all incom-ing regimental and battalion commanders had toattend for eight days. Additionally, Casey person-ally went to every division and brigade to briefthem on his strategic vision.

In the United States, the Army and MarineCorps revamped their services training programs.The emphasis of the Marine Corps' combinedarms exercise program at Twentynine Palms,California, and the U.S. Army's National TrainingCenter at Fort Irwin, California, changed fromtesting units against a Soviet-style conventionalopponent to testing . them against insurgents.Furthermore, in 2006, the U.S. Army set up a 60-day training program for its advisers at Fort Riley,Kansas: Finally, Petraeus and Mattis (now both incharge of their respective services' training estab-lishments in the United States) together spon-sored a new counterinsurgency manual (FieldManual 3-24) for the Army and Marine Corps thatwas issued in December 2006.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice con-tributed to the reforms by transferring the con-cept of provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs)from Afghanistan, where they had performedfairly well, to Iraq. Manned by State Departmentdiplomats, workers from USAID (United StatesAgency for International Development), agricul-tural experts, and engineers, PRTs focused onproviding economic assistance and developinglocal governmental bodies within each province.

Unfortunately, Tal Afar and al-Qa'im maskedproblems that still existed in U.S. counterinsur-

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gency. At the same time as al-Qa'im was beingmopped up, Marines in Haditha killed 24 civil-ians after being hit with a roadside bomb. MajorGeneral Eldon Bargewell, who investigated theincident, reported:

The most remarkable aspect of the fol-low-on action with regard to the civiliancasualties from the [November 191 Hadithaincident was the absence of virtually anykind of inquiry at any level of commandinto the circumstances surrounding thedeaths.27

While this incident was extreme, the use of airstrikes, the detainment of innocent civilians, theoccupation of homes, and checkpoints shootingat oncoming vehicles ('escalation of force inci-dents") were common. A later poll by the U.S.Army Surgeon General cited widespread attitudeswithin both the Marines and Army that devaluedIraq life. Almost a third of the respondents saidofficers had not made it clear that harming civil-ians was unacceptable.28

Other problems existed in the counterinsur-gency effort as well. Some commanders still

focused on mechanized sweeps or air assaults thatnever held an area after it had been cleared. Somebattalions were shifted from actively patrollingurban areas to operating out of large U.S. bases,reducing their ability to work with the people.

The inconsistency, of the U.S. reform effortderived from the decentralized command andcontrol structure developed for conventional war.Part of the doctrine was to delegate as much deci-sion-making authority as possible to prevent anypause in operational tempo. Consequently,brigade and battalion commanders enjoyed a free-dom to conduct operations as they saw fit. Thesystem might have worked if commanders hadbeen thoroughly trained in counterinsurgency.Instead, commanders often reverted to their con-ventional training and conducted operations thatwere too methodical or heavy-handed. The cOm-manders that instituted real change within theirunits, such as Petraeus and Alford, were the oneswho were more directive with their subordinates.

High-value targeting remained the one tactic

truly consistent throughout the U.S. forces. Thedetainment or death of a key leader undoubted-ly disrupted insurgent operations. However, raidsto capture insurgent leaders tended to disturbIraqi homes and sweep up innocent Iraqis,which only increased local resentment. Citycouncil meetings regularly featured complaintsabout raids. Furthermore, capturing or killing aninsurgent leader rarely caused insurgent opera-tions to fall apart, even in a local area. Indeed,the killing of Zarqawi himself in an air strike onJune 7, 2006 caused no discernible drop, inattack levels or long-term injury to AQI's organi-zational abilities.

Worst of all, the centerpiece of Casey's strate-gy was not performing well. The U.S. strategydepended upon the Iraqi Army taking over secu-rity duties. By early 2006, the Iraqi Army hadgrown to 10 divisions that actively participated inoperations. Nevertheless, they could not sup-press insurgent activity. This was partly becauseof deficiencies in their advising, training, andequipping. For example, 10 to 12 advisers wereshown to be too few to train an Iraqi battalionplus go on tactical operations with them. On topor that, they were often reservists or nationalguardsmen rather than the most capable active-duty personnel. However, the real problem lay inthe army's Shi'a ethnicity. In Sunni areas, thepopulation viewed the Iraqi Army as a Shi'aoccupation force and refused to provide theintelligence necessary to eradicate insurgents.Polling in 2006 found that 77 to 90 percent of therespondents in al-Anbar Province considered thegovernment to be illegitimate. A majority consid-ered the Iraqi Army to be a threat.29 Other pollsobtained similar results for the Sunnis overall.30In Ramadi, at the height of the sweltering sum-mer, locals refused to take free water offered byIraqi soldiers (some angrily poured it on theground) and did not stop insurgents from bomb-ing mobile clinics devised by the resident armybrigade to render medical care to the people.

Shi'a ethnicity also posed a problem in Shi'aor mixed areas. Some soldiers and officers. hadconnections to Shi'a militia and many admiredSadr. Consequently, Iraqi Army units oftenturned a blind eye to militia attacks on Sunnis in

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Baghdad and Diyala Provinces, the sectarian bat-tlegrounds. Worse, the special police comman-dos (later known as the National• Police), theparamilitary force of the Ministry of Interior, wereheavily influenced by the Badr Corps (a Shi'amilitia) and actively participated in ethnic cleans-ing.

Civil War

The sectarian divide between the Sunni andShi'a communities widened during 2005 as thenew Iraqi government took shape. The October2005 referendum passed a constitution allowingfor federalism, which threatened to deny theSunnis a share of oil profits, polarizing the twocommunities. Sunnis voted en masse inDecember, but as a means of maximizing politi-cal representation rather than in support of a sys-tem that promised power to the Shi'a majority.The election of a Shi'a majority in the legislativebody (the Council of Representatives) i-left theSunnis discontented. Polls found that the majori-ty of Sunnis did not consider the new, democrat-ic government to be legitimate and preferred thata strong leader take charge of Iraq.31

On February 22, 2006, AQI bombed theAskariya (Golden) Mosque in Samarra, a Shi'aholy site. Zarqawi had long been trying to insti-gate sectarian violence through suicide bombingsin Shi'a areas. The Golden Mosque bombing wasthe spark that caused the Shi'a militia—Jaysh alMahdi and the Badr Corps—to retaliate againstthe Sunni community in Baghdad, murderingsuspected insurgents and eventually pressingSunnis out of mixed neighborhoods. Over 30,000civilians fled their homes in the month after thebombing. In turn, more Sunnis took up arms todefend themselves and their families.

The U.S. leadership did not recognize that thetwo pillars of its counterinsurgency strategy—democratization and developing the IraqiArmy—could not circumvent the civil war.Neither Casey nor Abazaid wanted to call for U.S.reinforcements. They firmly believed doing sowould only reinforce Iraqi dependency on theUnited States. Also, according to Casey,American reinforcements could inflame the

insurgency. He noted, "We are the rationale forthe resistance and a magnet for the terrorists,"and persisted with plans to start withdrawingU.S. brigades by the end of the year.32 The Bushadministration did not object to this decisionbecause it helped avoid domestic criticism of thewar.33

Accordingly, Casey relied on the Iraqi Army toprovide the numbers to quell sectarian violence,especially inside Baghdad. With the Iraqi Armyineffective, the Coalition lost control of the capi-tal. Shi'a militias murdered scores of Sunnis whileAQI set off devastating car bombs in Shi'a neigh-borhoods (over 100 civilians could be killed in asingle day). Lieutenant General Chiarelli, nowCasey's operational commander, launched twooperations to regain control of the city:Operation Together Foward I (June 14-July 20,2006) and Operation Together Forward II (August8-October 24, 2006). In the former, U.S. and Iraqisoldiers set up security checkpoints, establisheda curfew, and increased their patrolling andhigh-value targeting efforts. In the latter opera-tion, 15,000 U.S. soldiers cleared disputed neigh-borhoods block by block. The role of holdingthe neighborhoods fell to the Iraqi Army.Incapable of gathering intelligence on Sunniinsurgents and often unwilling to confront theShi'a militias, the Iraqi soldiers could not providesecurity. Indeed, only 1,000 of the 4,000 IraqiArmy reinforcements even showed up.34 OnOctober 19, Major General William Caldwell, theCoalition spokesman, acknowledged thatOperation Together Forward II had failed.During its duration, attacks rose 22 percent.35Attacks on civilians by Shi'a militias and Sunniinsurgents had quadrupled, with over 1,000dying each month.36

The situation throughout Iraq deteriorated aswell. Attacks grew from 70 per day in January2006 to 180 per day in October. The situationwas particularly bad in al-Anhar. The I MarineExpeditionary Force fought for months withhardened AQI cadres to clear Ramadi, the capi-tal of al-Anbar, without any positive results. InBasrah, the hands-off British approach left Shi'amilitias (Jaysh al Mahdi, the Badr Corps, and theFadhila Party) vying for control of the city. The

24

militias escalated sectarian attacks on the city'ssizeable Sunni minority in the wake of theGolden Mosque bombings, largely expellingthem.

Sectarian violence undermined attempts atreconciliation between the Sunni and Shi'a com-munities. Sunni leaders felt even more marginal-ized from the government. A Fallujah city leadersaid at a city council meeting:

We want to participate in governmentbut what are the results; What are the ben-efits? We know the results. It is total failure.We still see the killing in the streets.Baghdad is in chaos. Iran's hands areeverywhere .37

That summer, Fallujah city leaders told Marineofficers that if the United States would not actagainst the "Iranians," then the Sunnis must beallowed to defend themselves.38 Indeed, 34 per-cent of Sunnis considered attacks on Iraqi gov-ernment forces to be acceptable; only 1 percentof Shi'a felt the same way.39 Shi'a leaders, includ-ing Prime Minister Nun al Maliki's new govern-ment, considered militias merely a form of pro-tection against the real threat to Iraq—theBa'athists and AQI. The growth of the Iraqi Army(as well as the Badr Corps and Jaysh al-Mahdi)and majority control over the new democraticgovernment gave Shi'a leaders little reason tocompromise. Consequently, they rejected seriousattempts at political reconciliation or restrainingattacks upon the Sunnis.40

The most promising event of 2006 was the riseof certain Sunni tribes in al-Anbar against al-Qaeda in Iraq. This had little to do with U.S.counterinsurgency tactics. The Coalition hadlong been trying to motivate the tribes and tradi-tional Sunni entities, such as the former military,to fight AQI, exemplified by the efforts of SpecialForces teams and Mattis' CAP platoons. It wasnot until it became clear that AQI was takingover the economic and political sources ofpower within society that tribes, many of whichhad formerly been part of the insurgency, startedto turn. The first had been the Albu Mahal in al-Qa'im in 2005. The tide truly turned in

September 2006, though, when Shaykh Abd al-Sittar Bezia Ftikhan al Rishawi openly announcedthe formation of a tribal movement, Sahawa a!-Anhar, opposed to AQI. Sittar's movementbacked local police forces. Because they wereSunni, the local community would give thepolice intelligence, enabling them to kill ordetain more insurgents than the Iraqi Army. Thenumber of police actively involved in operationsgrew from fewer than 1,000 in early 2006 to over7,000 in early 2007. By April, the police had man-aged to suppress insurgent activity in Ramadiand most of the key tribes of al-Anbar hadaligned with Sittar's movement.

A New Commander and a NewStrategy

The civil war forced a major change in U.S.strategy The Republican defeat in the midtermelections, followed by the Iraq Study Groupreport, made it impossible for Bush to ignore thedeteriorating situation. The Iraq Study Group, ateam of "prominent former US policy-makers—inclu ding former Secretary of State James Baker,former Senator Lee Hamilton, and formerDirector of Central Intelligence Robert Gates—recommended placing greater effort in expand-ing and training the Iraqi security forces, particu-larly the Iraqi Army. The group also called forbenchmarks to measure the progress of the Iraqigovernment toward political reconciliation, andnegotiating with Iraq's neighboring countries.

Bush announced his new strategy on January10, 2007. While he acknowledged the main rec-ommendations of the Iraq Study Group, thefocus of the new strategy was reinforcing the140,000 U.S. personnel in Iraq with another20,000-25,000 in five brigade combat teams andtwo Marine infantry battalions, known as "thesurge."

To execute the surge, Bush replaced Casey,due to leave Iraq in a few months, with Petraeus.Upon taking command on February 10, Petraeusincorporated the best lessons from Tal Afar, a!-Qa'im, and the new counterinsurgency manualinto the security plan for Baghdad (OperationFard al-Qanun). More than 50 small outposts

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(joint security stations) manned by Iraqi police,Iraqi Army, and U.S. soldiers were emplacedthroughout the city. His top priority was protect-ing the people rather than building the IraqiArmy (although that remained a critical task). Inhis view, the point of the surge was to create abreathing space in the violence, particularly inBaghdad, in which political reconciliation couldtake place. Petraeus wrote to his troops on March19:

Improving security for Iraq's populationis . . . the over-riding objective of your strat-egy. Accomplishing this mission requirescarrying out complex military operationsand convincing the Iraqi people that wewill not just "clear" their neighborhoods ofthe enemy, we will also stay and help"hold" the neighborhoods so that the"build" phase that many of their communi-ties need can go forward.41

ConclusionNearly four years of undiminished insurgent

activity forced a change in American strategy inIraq in 2007. The United States had made a seri-ous attempt at adapting—shown by the subordi-nation of military offensives to political priorities,the adoption of the clear-hold-build approach,the establishment of advisory teams, and the cre-ation of provincial reconstruction teams. Yetshortcomings remained, especially in regard tominimizing the use of force and, more important-iy, adjusting to the impact of the sectarian divide.The two pillars of U.S. strategy—democratizationand the building of a national and integratedIraqi Army—did not match the sectarian realitiesof Iraq. The democratization process put theSunnis in a position in which they stood to gainmore by waging war than accepting the outcomeof the political process. The election of a legiti-mate government based on a Shi'a majority actu-ally encouraged Sunnis to fight.

Nor was the Iraqi Army, Casey's main effort,suited to maintaining stability. The sectariandivide meant that Sunnis would not provide theIraqi Army with the intelligence necessary tosuppress insurgent activity. Conversely, the

army's own sectarian sympathies made it a poorinstrument for keeping Shi'a militias in line.

Consequently, gaining ground between 2003and 2007 was a matter of fundamentally reorient-ing the whole American strategy, not just learn-ing new tactics or making a few wiser politicaldecisions. This is not to say that the U.S. wareffort was doomed, but that the failure to struc-ture strategy around the sectarian divide was amajor reason for the difficulties experiencedbefore 2007. Whether such a reorientation was arealistic option is a separate question.Abandoning democracy surely would haveincurred disapproval from domestic and interna-tional political audiences, not to mention theShi'a majority in Iraq. And placing less relianceon the Iraqi Army may not have been possible,given the small size of the U.S. military presenceand the absence of large numbers of locallyrecruited Sunni forces until 2006. Indeed, evenduring the surge, the Iraqi Army remained essen-tial to U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.

In terms of the larger history of counterinsur-gency, Iraq highlights the effect that social orpolitical constraints, in this case the sectariandivide, have on the success of attempts to adaptand on the kind of strategy that will be mosteffective. Other factors—such as the presence ofa capable commander, an institutional willing-ness to adapt, or experience in fighting insurgen-cies—certainly play a role in effective counterin-surgency, but any successful strategy must con-form to the social and political environment inwhich a conflict is ensconced.

NotesChapter reprinted from Daniel Marston and

Carter A. Malkasian, eds., Counterinsurgency inModern Warfare (New York: Osprey, 2008), 241-59. Reprinted by permission of OspreyPublishing and Shire Publications.

1. For information on the conventional war, seeMichael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra H: TheInside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq(New York: Pantheon Books, 2006).2. For background on the history of Iraq, including itssectarian divisions, see Phebe Marr, The ModernHistory of Iraq (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004).

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3. Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20040212_zarqawi_full.html.4. L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle tOBuild a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Shuster2006), 213, 302, 330; and Bob Woodward, State ofDenial. Bush at Wa, Part HI (New York: Simon ahdSchuster, 2006), 229.5. Thomas Ricks, Fiasco; The American MilitaryAdventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2006), 233-34,283; "Clash of Cultures Fuels Low Level War ofIncreasing Animosity," London Financial Times, June2, 2003).6. Alissa Ruhin and Patrick McDonnell, "U.S. GunshipsTarget Insurgents in Iraq Amid Copter Crash Inquiry,"Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2003.7. LtGen David Petraeus, "Learning Counterinsur-gency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq," MilitaryReview, September-October 2006, 48.8. Discussion with MajGen Andrew Graham, CampVictory, September 8, 2004, and Multi NationalDivision Southeast, Basrah, November 30, 2004.9. Bremer, My Year in iraq, 317.10. Address by LtGen Ricardo Sanchez, Camp Fallujah,April 3, 2004, and I MEF Brief to Gen John Ahizaid,Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004.11. Camp Fallujah, I MEF Refugee Planning Meeting,April 10, 2004.12. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, 326-27, 333-34.13. Report to Congress, "Measuring Stability andSecurity in Iraq" (Washington, DC, July 2005), 6.14. ICRSS Poll, April 20-29, 2004.15. Discussions with 1st Battalion, 23d MarineRegiments, Camp Al Asad, October 31, 2004.16. Meeting with LtGen James Conway and LtGenJohn Sattler, Camp Fallujah, September 10, 2004.17. Again, the fighting spread to other cities. Britishbattalions in Basrah and Al Amarah experienced heavyfighting putting down the uprising, having to conductair strikes and patrol in Warrior fighting vehicles andChallenger 2 tanks to deal with the militia attacks.18. Fallujah Confirmation Brief to Gen Casey and LtGenMetz, Camp Fallujah, November 5, 2004.19. For further information see John Sattler and DanielWilson, "Operation Al Fajr: The Battle of Fallujah PartII," Marine Corps Gazelle, July 2005, 12-24, and BingWest, No True Glory. A Frontline Account of the Battleof Failujah (New York: Bantam Books, 2005).20. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, press release,October 26, 2005, and speech on Iraq's Constitution,August I, 2005.21. George Packer, "The Lesson of Tal Afar," NewYorker, vol. 82. no. 8 (April 10, 2006).22. Chris Gibson, "Battlefield Victories and StrategicSuccess: The Path Forward in Iraq," Military Review,September-October 2006, 50-55.23. H. R. McMaster, Georgetown University, December2006.24. Discussions with 3d Battalion, 6th Marine

Regiment (3/6), Camp al-Qa'irn, February 21, 2006.25. Ibid.26. .Discussions with 3/6, Camp al-Qa'im, February 21,2006, and with 3d Brigade, 7th Iraqi Brigade militarytransition team, Camp Al Asad, July 15, 2006.27. Josh White, "Report on Haditha CondemnsMarines," Washington Post, April 21, 2007.28. Mental Health Advisory Team IV Final Report.Office of the Surgeon General. U.S. Army MedicalCommand (November 17, 2006), 35.29. Al-Anbar Survey 11: September/October 2006(October 2006); Al Anbar Survey 7: May 2006, LincolnGroup Survey Report (June 10, 2006).30. World Public Opinion Poll, www.worldpublicopin-ion.org (January 2, 2006) 75 percent of Sunnis had lit-tle confidence in the Iraqi Army according to Iraq Poll2007, BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV, USA Today(March 2007).31. World Public Opinion Poll; Iraq Poll, BBC, ABCNews, ARD German TV, USA Today (March 2007).32. Gen George Casey, Brief to I Marine ExpeditionaryForce, Camp Fallujah, March 13, 2006.33. Brief to the Commandant of the Marine Corps,Camp Fallujah, April 11, 2006.34. Solomon Moore and Julian Barnes, "Many Iraq:

Troops are No-Shows in Baghdad," Los Angeles Times,September 23, 2006.35. John Burns, "U.S. Says Violence in Baghdad Rises,Foiling Campaign," New York Times, October 2, 2006.36. LtGen Michael Maples, DIA Testimony to theSenate Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC,November 15, 2006.37. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Mayor's Complex,July 25, 2006.38. Discussion with Fallujah city leaders, FallujahCMOC, August 1, 2006.39. Iraq Poll, BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV, USAToday (March 2007).40. Vali Nasr, "When the Shiites Rise," Foreign Affairs,July/August 2006.41. Gen David Petraeus, Note to Troops, March 19,2007.

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About the AuthorCarter A. Malkasian directs the Small Wars Program at the Center

for Naval Analyses. Prior to his current job, he was assigned to the

I Marine Expeditionary Force as an advisor on counterinsurgency,

He deployed with I MEF to Iraq from February to May 2003,

February 2004 to February 2005, and February to August 2006.

Iraq's Civil War

by James D. FearonForeign Affairs, March-April 2007

No Graceful Exits sectarian violence spiked in Baghdadaround last Thanksgiving [2006], Bushdministration spokespeople found them-

selves engaged in a strange semantic fight withAmerican journalists over whether the conflict inIraq is appropriately described as a civil war. It isnot hard to understand why the administrationstrongly resists the label. For one thing, the U.S.media would interpret a change in the WhiteHouse's position on this question as a major con-cession, an open acknowledgment of dashedhopes and failed policy. For another, the admin-istration worries that if the U.S. public comes tosee the violence in Iraq as a civil war, it will beeven less willing to tolerate continued U.S. mili-tary engagement. "If it's a civil war, what are wedoing there, mixed up in someone else's fight?"Americans may ask.

But if semantics could matter a lot, it is lessobvious whether they should influence U.S. pol-icy. Is it just a matter of domestic political gamesand public perceptions, or does the existence ofcivil war in Iraq have implications for what canbe achieved there and what strategy Washingtonshould pursue?

In fact, there is a civil war in progress in Iraq,one comparable in important respects to othercivil wars that have occurred in postcolonialstates with weak political institutions. Thosecases suggest that the Bush administration'spolitical objective in Iraq—creating a stable,peaceful, somewhat democratic regime that cansurvive the departure of U.S. troops—is unrealis-tic. Given this unrealistic political objective, mili-tary strategy of any sort is doomed to fail almostregardless of whether the administration goeswith the "surge" option, as President George W.

29

Bush has proposed, or shifts toward a pure train-ing mission, as advised by the Iraq Study Group.

Even if an increase in the number of U.S. com-bat troops reduces violence in Baghdad and sobuys time for negotiations on power sharing inthe current Iraqi government, there is no goodreason to expect that subsequent reductionswould not revive the violent power struggle.Civil wars are rarely ended by stable power-shar-ing agreements. When they are, it typically takescombatants who are not highly factionalized andyears of fighting to clarify the balance of power.Neither condition is satisfied by Iraq at present.Factionalism among the Sunnis and the Shiitesapproaches levels seen in Somalia, and multiplearmed groups on both sides appear to believethat they could wrest control of the governmentif U.S. forces left. Such beliefs will not changequickly while large numbers of U.S. troopsremain.

As the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad proceeds,the weak Shiite-dominated government isinevitably becoming an open partisan in a nastycivil war between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. As aresult, President Bush's commitment to making a"success" of the current government will increas-ingly amount to siding with the Shiites, a positionthat is morally dubious and probably not in theinterest of either the United States or long-termregional peace and stability. A decisive militaryvictory by a Shiite-dominated government is notpossible anytime soon given the favorable condi-tions for insurgency fought from the Sunni-dom-mated provinces. Furthermore, this courseencourages Sunni nationalists to turn to al-Qaedain Iraq for support against Shiite militias and theIraqi army. It also essentially aligns Washingtonwith Tehran against the Sunni-dominated statesto the west.

As long as the Bush administration remainsabsolutely committed to propping up the gov-ërnment of Prime Minister Noun al-Maliki or a

similarly configured successor, the U.S. govern-ment will have limited leverage with almost all ofthe relevant parties. By contrast, moving awayfrom absolute commitment—for example, bybeginning to shift U.S. combat troops out of thecentral theaters—would increase U.S. diplomaticand military leverage on almost all fronts. Doingso would not allow the current or the next U.S.administration to bring a quick end to the civilwar, which most likely will last for some time.But it would allow the United States to play abalancing role between the combatants thatwould he more conducive to reaching, in thelong run, a stable resolution in which Sunni,Shiite, and Kurdish interests are well representedin a decent Iraqi government. If the Iraqis evermanage to settle on the power-sharing agree-ment that is the objective of current U.S. policy,it will come only after bitter fighting in the civilwar that is already under way.

War Records

A civil war is. a violent conflict within a coun-try fought by organized groups that aim to takepower at the center or in a region, or to changegovernment policies. Everyday usage of the term"civil war" does not entail a clear threshold forhow much violence is necessary to qualify a con-flict as a civil war, as opposed to terrorism orlow-level political strife. Political scientists some-times use a threshold of at least 1,000 killed overthe course of a conflict. Based on this arguablyrather low figure, there have been around 125civil wars since the end of World War II, andthere are roughly 20 ongoing today. If thatthreshold is increased to an average of 1,000people killed per year, there have still been over90 civil wars since 1945. (It is often assumed thatthe prevalence of civil wars is a post-Cold Warphenomenon, but in fact the number of ongoingcivil wars increased steadily from 1945 to theearly 1990s, before receding somewhat to late-1970s levels.) The rate of killing in Iraq—easilymore than 60,000 in the last three years—putsthe conflict in the company of many recent onesthat are routinely described as civil wars (forexample, those in Algeria, Colombia, Guatemala,

30

Peru, and Sri Lanka). Indeed, even the conserva-tive estimate of 60,000 deaths would make Iraqthe ninth-deadliest civil war since 1945 in termsof annual casualties.

A major reason for the prevalence of civil warsis that they have been hard to end. Their averageduration since 1945 has been about 10 years,with half lasting more than seven years. Theirlong duration seems to result from the way inwhich most of these conflicts have been fought:namely, by rebel groups using guerrilla tactics,usually operating in rural regions of postcolonialcountries with weak administrative, police, andmilitary capabilities. Civil wars like that of. theUnited States, featuring conventional armies fac-ing off along well-defined fronts, have beenhighly unusual. Far more typical have been con-flicts such as those in Algeria, Colombia, SriLanka, and southern and western Sudan. Asthese cases illustrate, rural guerrilla warfare canbe an extremely robust tactic, allowing relativelysmall numbers of rebels to gain partial control oflarge amounts of territory for years despiteexpensive and brutal military campaigns againstthem.

The civil war in Iraq began in 2004 as a pri-marily urban guerrilla struggle by Sunni insurgentgroups hoping to drive out the United States andto regain the power held by Sunnis underSaddam Hussein. It escalated in 2006 with theproliferation and intensification of violence byShiite militias, who ostensibly seek to defendShiites from the Sunni insurgents and who havepursued this end with "ethnic cleansing" and agreat deal of gang violence and thuggery.

This sort of urban guerrilla warfare and mili-tia-based conflict differs from the typical post-1945 civil war, but there are analogues. One lit-tle-discussed.but useful comparison is the violentconflict that wracked Turkish cities between 1977and 1980. According to standard estimates, fight-ing among local militias and paramilitaries align-ing themselves with "the left" or "the right" killedmore than 20 people per day in thousands ofattacks and counterattacks, assassinations, anddeath-squad campaigns. Beginning with a mas-sacre by rightists in the city of Kahramanmaras inDecember 1978, the left-right conflicts spiraled

into ethnic violence, pitting Sunnis againstAlawites against Kurds against Shiites in variouscities.

As in Iraq today, the organization of theTurkish combatants was highly local and faction-alized, especially on the left; the fighting oftenlooked like urban gang violence. But, also as inIraq, the gangs and militias had shady ties to thepolitical parties controlling the democraticallyelected national parliament as well. (Indeed, onemight describe the civil conflicts in Turkey thenand in Iraq now as "militarized party politics.")Intense political rivalries between the leadingTurkish politicians, along with their politicallyuseful ties to the paramilitaries, prevented thedemocratic regime from moving decisively toend the violence. Much as in Iraq today, theelected politicians fiddled while the citiesburned. Fearing that the lower ranks of the mili-tary were becoming infected with the violent fac-tionalism of the society at large, military leadersundertook a coup in September 1980, afterwhich they unleashed a major wave of repres-sion against militias and gang members of boththe left and the right. At the price of military rule(for what turned out to be three years), the urbanterror was ended.

Especially if the United States withdraws fromIraq, the odds are good that a military coup inwhich some subset of the Iraqi army leadershipdeclares that the elected government is not work-ing and that a strong hand is necessary to imposeorder will result. It is unlikely, however, that amilitary regime in Iraq would be able to followthe example of the one in Turkey in the early1980s. The Turkish military was a strong institu-tion with enough autonomy and enough loyaltyto the Kemalist national ideal that it could actindependently of the divisions tearing the coun-try apart. Although the army favored the rightmore than the left, Turkish citizens saw it as large-ly standing apart from the factional fighting—andthus as a credible intervenor. By contrast, theIraqi army and, even more, the Iraqi police forceappear to have little autonomy from society andpolitics. The police look like militia members indifferent uniforms, Sometimes with some U.S.training. The army has somewhat more institu-

31

tional coherence and autonomy, but it is Shiite-dominated and has few functional mixed units.Some evidence suggests that high-level figures inthe army are facilitating, if not actively pursuing,ethnic cleansing. Accordingly, a power grab by asubset of the army leadership would be widelyinterpreted as a power grabby a particular Shiitefaction—and could lead the army to break upalong sectarian and, possibly, factional lines.

What happened in Lebanon in 1975-76 mayoffer better insights into what is likely to happenin Iraq. As violence between Christian militias andPalestine Liberation Organization [PLOI factionsstarted to escalate in 1975, the Lebanese armyleadership initially stayed out of the conflict, real-izing that the army would splinter if it tried tointervene. But as the violence escalated, the armyeventually did intervene—and broke apart.Lebanon then entered a long period of conflictduring which an array of Christian, Sunni, Shiite,and PLO militias fought one another off and on(as much within sectarian groups as betweenthem). Syrian and Israeli military involvementsometimes reduced and sometimes escalated theviolence. Alliances shifted, often in surprisingways. The Syrians, for example, initially sidedwith the Christians against the PLO.

A similar scenario is already playing out inIraq. Whether U.S. forces stay or go, Iraq south ofthe Kurdish areas will probably look more andmore like Lebanon during its long civil war.Effective political authority will devolve toregions, cities, and even neighborhoods. After aperiod of ethnic cleansing and fighting to drawlines, an equilibrium with lower-level, more inter-mittent sectarian violence will set in, punctuatedby larger campaigns financed and aided by for-eign powers. Violence and exploitation withinsects will most likely worsen, as the neighbor-hood militias and gangs that carried out the eth-nic cleansing increasingly fight among themselvesover turf, protection rackets, and trade. As inLebanon, there will probably be a good deal ofintervention by neighboring states—especiallyIran—but it will not necessarily bring them greatstrategic gains. To the contrary, it may bring thema great deal of grief, just as it has the UnitedStates.

Learning to Share?

When they do finally end, civil wars typicallyconclude with a decisive military victory for oneside. Of the roughly 55 civil wars fought for con-trol of a central government (as opposed to forsecession or regional autonomy) since 1955, fully75 percent ended with a clear victory for oneside. The government ultimately crushed therebels in at least 40 percent of the 55 cases,whereas the rebels won control of the center in35 percent. Power-sharing agreements thatdivide up control of a central government amongthe combatants have been far less common. Bymy reckoning, at best, 9 of the 55 cases, or about16 percent, ended this way. Examples include ElSalvador in 1992, South Africa in 1994, andTajikistan in 1997.

If successful power-sharing agreements rarelyend civil wars, it is not for lack of effort.Negotiations on power sharing are common inthe midst of civil wars, as are failed attempts,often with the help of outside intervention bystates or international institutions, to implementsuch agreements. The point of departure for boththe Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the rebelattack that ended it, for example, was the failureof an extensive power-sharing agreementbetween the Rwandan government, Huffi oppo-sition parties, and the Tutsi insurgents.

Power-sharing agreements rarely work inlarge part because civil wars cause combatants tobe organized in a way that produces mutuallyreinforcing fears and temptations: combatants areafraid that the other side will use force to grabpower and at the same time are tempted to useforce to grab power themselves. If one militiafears that another will try to use force to win con-trol of the army or a city, then it has a strongincentive to use force to prevent this. The othermilitia understands this incentive, which gives ita good reason to act exactly .as the first militiafeared. In the face of these mutual, self-fulfillingfears, agreements on paper about dividing up orsharing control of political offices, the military,or, say, oil revenues are often just that—paper.They may survive while a powerful third partyimplicitly threatens to prevent violent power

32

grabs (as the United States has done in Iraq), butthey are likely to disintegrate otherwise.

The Bush administration has attempted tohelp put in place an Iraqi government based ona power-sharing agreement among Shiite, Sunni,and Kurdish leaders, but it has done so in themidst of an escalating civil war. The historicalevidence suggests that this is a Sisyphean task.The effective provision of security by an inter-vening power may even undermine the beliefthat the government could stand on its own with-out the third party's backing. U.S. military inter-vention in Iraq is thus unlikely to produce a gov-ernment that can survive by itself whether thetroops stay 10 more months or 10 more years.

Could Iraq in 2007 be one of the rare cases inwhich power sharing successfully ends a civilwar? Examining earlier such cases suggests thatthey have two distinctive features that makepower sharing feasible. First, a stable agreementis typically reached only after a period of fightinghas clarified the relative military capabilities ofthe various sides. Each side needs to come to theconclusion that it cannot get everything it wantsby violence. For example, the Dayton agreementthat divided power among the parties to theBosnian war required not only NATO interven-tion to get them to the table and enforce the dealbut also more than three years of intense fight-ing, which had brought the combatants essential-ly to a stalemate by the summer of 1995. (Eventhen, the agreement would not have held, andthe government would surely have collapsed, ifnot for a continued third-party guarantee fromNATO and effective sovereign control by theOffice of the High Representative created underDayton.)

Second, a power-sharing deal tends to holdonly when every side is relatively cohesive. Howcan one party expect that another will live up toits obligations if it has no effective control overits own members? Attempts to construct power-sharing deals to end civil wars in Burundi andSomalia, for example, have been frustrated foryears by factionalism within rebel groups.Conversely, the consolidation of power by onerebel faction can sometimes enable a peaceagreement—as occurred prior to the deal that

ended the first war between Khartoum andsouthern Sudanese rebels in 1972.

Neither of these conditions holds for Iraq.First, there are many significant (and well-armed)Sunni groups that seem to believe that withoutU.S. troops present, they could win back controlof Baghdad and the rest of the country. Andthere are many Shiites, including many withguns, who believe that as the majority groupthey can and will maintain political dominationof Iraq. Moreover, among the Shiites, Muqtada al-Sadr seems to believe that he could wrest controlfrom his rivals if the United States left. Indeed, ifthe United States withdraws, violence betweenShiite militias will likely escalate further. Openfighting between Shiite militias might, in turn,reaffirm the Sunni insurgents' belief that they willbe able to retake power.

Second, both the Sunnis and the Shiites arehighly factionalized, at the national political leveland at the level of neighborhood militias andgangs. Shiite politicians are divided into at leastfour major parties, and one of these, Dawa (theparty of Prime Minister Maliki), has historicallybeen divided into three major factions. Sadr isconstantly described in the U.S. media as theleader of the largest and most aggressive Shiitemilitia in Iraq, but it has never been clear if hecan control what the militias who praise hisname actually do. The Iraqi Sunnis are similarlydivided among tribes outside of Baghdad, andthe organizational anarchy of Sunni Islam seemsto make group-wide coordination extremely dif-ficult.

If Maliki had the authority of a NelsonMandela, and a party organization with the (rel-ative) coherence and dominance of the AfricanNational Congress in the anti-apartheid struggle,he would be able to move more effectively toincorporate and co-opt various Sunni leadersinto the government without fear of undermininghis own power relative to that of his variousShiite political adversaries. He would also be bet-ter able to make credible commitments to deliv-er on promises made to Sunni leaders. As it is,intra-Shiite political rivalries render the new gov-ernment almost completely dysfunctional. Itsministers see their best option as cultivating mili-

33

tias (or ties to militias) for current and comingfights, extortion rackets, and smuggling opera-tions.

Tragically, more civil war may be the onlyway to reach a point where power sharing couldbecome a feasible solution to the problem ofgoverning Iraq. More fighting holds the prospectof clarifying the balance of forces and creatingpressures for internal consolidation on one orboth sides, thereby providing stronger groundsfor either a victory by one side or a stable nego-tiated settlement. Should the latter eventuallycome into view, some sort of regional or interna-tional peacekeeping force will almost surely berequired to help bring it into being. The IraqStudy Group report is quite right that Washingtonshould be setting up diplomatic mechanisms forsuch eventualities, sooner rather than later.

Balancing Act

Hopefully, this analysis is too pessimistic.Perhaps Iraq's elected politicians will muddlethrough, and perhaps the Iraqi army will, withU.S. support, develop the capability and motiva-tion to act effectively and evenhandedly againstinsurgents and militias on all sides. The opti-mistic scenario is so unlikely, however, that pol-icy makers must consider the implications if civilwar in Iraq continues and escalates.

Suppose that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdadcontinues and Sunni insurgent groups and Shiitemilitias continue to fight one another, U.S.troops, and civilians. If the Bush administrationsticks to its "stay the course toward victory"approach, of which the surge option is the latestincarnation, it will become increasingly apparentthat this policy amounts to siding with the Shiitesin an extremely vicious Sunni-Shiite war. U.S.troops may play some positive role in preventinghuman rights abuses by Iraqi army units andslowing down violence and ethnic cleansing. Butas long as the United States remains committedto trying to make this Iraqi government "suc-ceed" on the terms President Bush has laid out,there is no escaping the fact that the central func-tion of U.S. troops will be to backstop Maliki'sgovernment or its successor. That security gives

Maliki and his coalition the ability to tacitly pur-sue (or acquiesce in) a dirty war against actualand imagined Sunni antagonists while publiclysupporting "national reconciliation."

This policy is hard to defend on the groundsof either morality or national interest. Even ifShiite thugs and their facilitators in the govern-ment could succeed in ridding Baghdad ofSunnis, it is highly unlikely that they would beable to suppress the insurgency in the Sunni-majority provinces in western Iraq or to preventattacks in Baghdad and other places whereShiites live. In other words, thecurrent U.S. pol-icy probably will not lead to a decisive militaryvictory anytime soon, if ever. And even if it did,would Washington want it to? The rise of a bru-tal, ethnically exclusivist, Shiite-dominated gov-ernment in Baghdad would further the percep-tion of Iran as the ascendant regional power.Moreover, U.S. backing for such a governmentwould give Iraqi Sunnis and the Sunni-dominat-ed countries in the Middle East no reason not tosupport al-Qaeda as an ally in Iraq. By spurringthese states to support Sunni forces fighting theShiite government, such backing would ultimate-ly pit the United States against those states in aproxy war.

To avail itself of more attractive policyoptions, the Bush administration (or its succes-sor) must break off its unconditional militarysupport for the Shiite-dominated governmentthat it helped bring to power in Baghdad.Washington's commitment to Maliki's govern-ment undermines U.S. diplomatic and militaryleverage with almost every relevant party in thecountry and the region. Starting to move awayfrom this commitment by shifting combat troopsout of the central theaters could, accordingly,increase U.S. leverage with almost all parties.The current Shiite political leadership would thenhave incentives to try to gain back U.S. militarysupport by, for example, making more genuineefforts to incorporate Sunnis into the governmentor reining in Shiite militias. (Admittedly, whetherit has the capacity to do either is unclear.) As U.S.troops departed, Sunni insurgent groups wouldbegin to see the United Statesless as a commit-ted ally of the "Persians" and more as a potential

34

source of financial or even military backing.Washington would also have more leverage withIran and Syria, because the U.S. military wouldnot he completely bogged down in Baghdad andAnbar Province—and because both of thosecountries have a direct interest in avoidingincreased chaos in Iraq.

Again, none of this would make for a quickend to the civil war, which will probably last forsome time in any event. But it would allow theUnited States to move toward a balancing rolethat would be more conducive to ultimately gain-ing a stable resolution in which Sunni, Shiite, andKurdish interests are represented in a decentIraqi government.

Despite the horrific violence currently tearingIraq apart, in the long run there is hope for thereturn of a viable Iraqi state based on a politicalbargain among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish lead-ers. Indeed, they may end up cooperating onterms set by a constitution similar to the currentone—although only after a significant period offighting. The basis for an Iraqi state is the com-mon interest of all parties, especially the elites, inthe efficient exploitation of oil resources.Continued civil war could persuade Shiite lead-ers that they cannot fully enjoy oil profits andpolitical control without adequately buying offSunni groups, who can maintain a costly insur-gency. And civil war could persuade the Sunnisthat a return to Sunni dominance and Shiite qui-escence is impossible. Kurdish leaders have aninterest in the autonomy they have alreadysecured but with access to functioning oilpipelines leading south.

There are, of course, other possible outcomesof continued civil war in Iraq, including a formalbreakup of the country or a decisive victorysouth of the Kurdish areas by a Sunni- or Shiite-dominated military organization that wouldimpose a harsh dictatorship. Insofar as theUnited States can influence the ultimate out-come, neither of these is as good a long-termpolicy objective as a power-sharing agreement.As the Iraq Study Group has argued, attemptingto impose some kind of partition would proba-bly increase the killing. In addition, there are noobvious defensible borders to separate Sunnis

from Shiites; the Sunnis would not rest contentwith an oil-poor patch of western Iraq; it is notclear that new Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish stateswould be much more peaceful than Iraq is atpresent; and there would be considerable eco-nomic inefficiencies from making three statesfrom one in this area. It is conceivable that civilwar will someday lead the combatants in Iraq toagree on Iraq's partition anyway, but this is adecision for Iraqis rather than outsiders to make.

Most civil wars end with a decisive militaryvictory—and this one may as well—but a deci-sive military victory and political dictatorship forsome Sunni or Shiite group is even less appeal-ing as a long-term U.S. policy objective. A deci-sive military victory for a Shiite-dominated fac-tion would favor both Iran and al-Qaeda, and adecisive victory for Sunni insurgents wouldamount to restoring oppressive minority rule, amajor reason for the current mess.

Two less extreme outcomes would be muchbetter for most Iraqis, for regional peace and sta-bility, and for U.S. interests in the region. Thefirst would be a power-sharing agreement amonga small number of Iraqi actors who actually com-manded a military force and controlled territory,to be stabilized at least initially by an internation-al peacekeeping operation. The second wouldbe the rise of a dominant military force whoseleader had both the inclination and the ability tocut deals with local 'warlords" or political boss-es from all other groups. Neither outcome can beimposed at this point by the United States. Bothcould be reached only through fighting and bar-gaining carried out primarily by Iraqis.

To facilitate either outcome, the U.S. govern-ment would have to pursue a policy of balanc-ing, using diplomatic, financial, and possiblysome military tools to encourage the perceptionthat no one group or faction can win withoutsharing power and resources. A balancing policymight be pursued from "offshore," implementedmainly by supplying monetary and material sup-

35

port to tactical allies, or "onshore," possiblydrawing on air strikes or other forms of U.S. mil-itary intervention originating from bases in Iraqor close by. The mechanics would necessarilydepend on a complicated set of diplomatic, polit-ical, and military contingencies. The importantpoint is that the only alternative to some form ofbalancing policy would be to support decisivevictory by one side or the other, which wouldprobably be undesirable even in 'the unlikelyevent that victory came soon.

Even if the coming "surge" in U.S. combattroops manages to lower the rate of killing inBaghdad, very little in relevant historical experi-ence or the facts of this case suggests that U.S.troops would not be stuck in Iraq for decades,keeping sectarian and factional power strugglesat bay while fending off jihadist and nationalistattacks. The more likely scenario is that the Bushadministration's commitment to the "success" ofthe Maliki government will make the UnitedStates passively complicit in a massive campaignof ethnic cleansing. Standing back to adopt amore evenhanded policy in the civil war alreadyin progress is a more sensible and defensiblecourse. To pursue it, the Bush administration orits successor would first have to give up on theidea that a few more U.S. brigades or a changein U.S. tactics will make for an Iraq that can, inPresident Bush's words, "govern itself, sustainitself, and defend itself' once U.S. troops aregone.

NotesForeign Affairs, March-April 2007, 2-16.

Reprinted by permission of the Council on ForeignRelations, Inc. (www.ForeignAffairs .com), © 2007.

About the AuthorJames D. Fearon is Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the

School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of political sci-

ence at Stanford University He is also an affiliated faculty mem-

ber with the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Part II: Counterinsurgency and IrregularWarfare— Observations and Principles

The first part of America's war with Iraq was char-iacterized by large-scale maneuver operations asU.S. combat units sped across the Iraqi desert to

unseat Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. This phasewas relatively brief, lasting only a few weeks. The gen:eral insurgency against the U.S. presence in Iraq haslasted significantly longer.

The need to defeat the Iraq insurgency and bringorder and stability to the country provoked a debatewithin the U.S. military about the best and most effec-tive means to conduct counterinsurgency operations.While the U.S. armed services, and the Marine Corps inparticular, had a long tradition of conducting such oper-ations, the transition from maneuver combat to irregu-lar warfare was nevertheless a difficult one thatrequired radical changes in how to assess and confrontenemy forces. The initial reaction of many units was tomake liberal use of heavy firepower to destroy theinsurgent forces. However, this tactic endangered Iraqicivilians and threatened to provoke even more opposi-tion to the U.S. presence in the country. OtherAmerican commanders championed tactics that focusedon protecting the civilian population and building localinfrastructures and civic institutions. Other leaders, suchMulti National Force-Iraq commander General GeorgeW. Casey Jr., USA, favored building local Iraqi forces toprosecute counterinsurgency operations, thus permit-ting a drastic reduction of U.S. forces.

The period from 2004 to 2008 saw the production ofa number of works aimed at developing new strategiesand tactics for combating insurgencies. These workspresented broad principles and strategies that drew oncentury's old concepts about the nature of irregularwarfare and the best way of battling insurgencies.David Kilcullen's "Twenty-Eight Articles," for example,made a conscious decision to draw upon one of the firstmodern theorists of insurgencies in the Middle East,British Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Kilcullen's article, mod-eled after Lawrence's own article, "Twenty-SevenArticles"1 aims to demonstrate the critical differencesbetween irregular warfare and maneuver warfare, whilealso stressing the need to understand the culture and

37

circumstances of the area of operations.In 2006, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps pub-

lished a new doctrine, Counterinsurgency (Field Manual3-24/Marine Corps Publication 3-33.5). The commanderswho directed the creation of the manual, LieutenantGeneral David H. Petraeus, USA, Lieutenant GeneralJames N. Mattis, and Lieutenant General James F. Amos,were all division commanders during Operation IraqiFreedom II who advocated counterinsurgency tacticsbased on respecting local culture and customs, engagingand protecting the population, building local institu-tions, and using highly mobile patrols to hunt down andkill insurgents without resorting to large-scale use offirepower. General Petraeus's 2006 article, "Learning

Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in

Iraq," draws on his experience as the commander of the101st Airborne Division in the northern Iraqi city ofMosul. The article outlines a number of principles thatwould help shape the new counterinsurgency manual.Kilcullen's and Petraeus's articles are reprinted below.

As military thinkers developed new approaches tocounterinsurgency doctrine, the question of air powerwas often overlooked. With insurgents operating out ofoften densely population urban centers, aerial bonbard-ment, no matter how accurate, often threatened killingcivilians and causing excessive damage. As a conse-quence, many commanders perceived the use of air-power as an unnecessary risk that would cause a riftbetween the local population and U.S. forces andenflame the insurgency. In "Making RevolutionaryChange: Airpower in COIN Today," Major GeneralCharles A. Dunlap Jr., USAF, nevertheless argues that airpower can and should play a role in effective counterin-surgency operations. Focusing on unmanned aerial vehi-cles and the logistical support air power can provide tothe combat zone, Dunlap makes the argument that airpower constitutes a critically overlooked component ofirregular warfare.

1. T.E. Lawrence, "Twenty-Seven Articles," The Arab Bulletin,

20 August 1917 (online at http://www.hu.edu/mzank/Jerusalem/tx/lawrence.htm).

Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals ofCompany-Level Counterinsurgency

by David KilcullenMarine Coips Gazette, July 2006

your company has just been warned fordeployment on counterinsurgency opera-tions in Iraq or Afghanistan. You have read

David Galula, T. E. Lawrence, and Sir RobertThompson. You have studied Field Manual 3-24,Counterinsurgency, and now understand the his-tory, philosophy, and theory of counterinsurgency.You watched Black Hawk Down and The Battle ofAlgiers, and you know this will be the most diffi-cult challenge of your life. But what does all of thetheory mean at the company level? How do theprinciples translate into action—at night, with theglobal positioning system down, the media criticiz-ing you, the locals complaining in a language youdon't understand, and an unseen enemy killingyour people by ones and twos? How does coun-terinsurgency actually happen?

There are no universal answers, and insurgentsare among the most adaptive opponents you willever face. Countering them will demand everyounce of your intellect. But be comforted; you arenot the first to feel this way. There are tactical fun-damentals you can apply to link the theory withthe techniques and procedures you already know.

What is Counterinsurgency?

If you have not studied counterinsurgency the-ory, here it is in a nutshell. It is a competition withthe insurgent for the right and the ability to winthe hearts, minds, and acquiescence of the popu-lation. You are being sent in because the insur-gents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weak-er than you. But you have more combat powerthan you can or should use in most situations.Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds,homeless people, and societal disruption that fuelsand perpetuates the insurgency. The most benefi-cial actions are often local politics, civic action,

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and beat-cop behaviors. For your side to win, thepeople do not have to like you, but they mustrespect you, accept that your actions benefit them,and trust your integrity and ability to deliver onpromises, particularly regarding their security. Inthis battlefield, popular perceptions and rumor aremore influential than the facts and more powerfulthan 100 tanks.

Within this context, what follows are observa-tions from collective experience—the distilledessence of what those who went before youlearned. They are expressed as commandments,for clarity, but are really more like folklore. Applythem judiciously and skeptically.

Preparation

Time is short during predeployment, but youwill never have more time to think than you havenow. Now is your chance to prepare yourself andyour command.

Article 1. Know your turf Know the people,topography, economy, history, religion, and cul-ture. Know every village, road, field, populationgroup, tribal leader, and ancient grievance. Yourtask is to become the world expert on your dis-trict. If you don't know precisely where you willbe operating, study the general area. Read themap like a book; study it every night before sleep,and redraw it from memory every morning untilyou understand its patterns intuitively. Develop amental model of your area—a framework in whichto fit every new piece of knowledge you acquire.Study handover notes from predecessors; betterstill, get in touch with the unit in-theater and picktheir brains. In an ideal world, intelligence officersand area experts would brief you. This rarely hap-pen. Even if it does, there is no substitute for per-sonal mastery. Understand the broader "area ofinfluence." This can be a wide area, particularlywhen insurgents draw on "global" grievances.Share aspects of the operational area among pla-

toon leaders and noncommissioned officers; haveeach individual develop a personal specializationand brief the others. Neglect this knowledge andit will kill you.

Article 2. Diagnose the problem. Once youknow your area and its people, you can begin todiagnose the problem. Who are the insurgents?What drives them? What makes local leaders tick?Counterinsurgency is fundamentally a competitionbetween many groups, each seeking to mobilizethe population in support of their agenda.Counterinsurgency is always more than two sided,so you must understand what motivates the peo-ple and how to mobilize them. You need to knowwhy and how the insurgents are getting followers.This means you need to know your real enemy,not a cardboard cutout. The enemy is adaptive,resourceful, and probably grew up in the regionwhere you will operate. The locals have knownhim since he was a boy. How long have theyknown you? Your worst opponent is not the psy-chopathic terrorist of Hollywood; it is the charis-matic "follow me" warrior who would make yourbest platoon leader. His followers are not misledor naïve. Much of his success is due to had gov-ernment policies or security forces that alienatethe population. Work this problem collectivelywith your platoon and squad leaders. Discussideas, explore the problem, understand what youare facing, and seek a consensus. If this sounds"unmilitary," get over it. Once you are in-theater,situations will arise too quickly for orders or evencommander's intent. Corporals and privates willhave to make snap judgments with strategicimpact. The only way to help them is to give thema shared understanding, then trust them to thinkfor themselves on the day.

Article 3. Organize for intelligence. In coun-terinsurgency, killing the enemy is easy. Findinghim is often nearly impossible. Intelligence andoperations are complementary. Your operationswill be intelligence driven, but intelligence willcome mostly from your own operations, not as a"product" prepared and served up by higher head-quarters. So you must organize for intelligence.You will need a company S-2 intelligence sec-tion—including analysts. You may need platoon S-2s and S-3s (operations), and you will need a

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reconnaissance and surveillance (R&S) element.You will not have enough linguists—you neverdo—but consider carefully where best to employthem. Linguists are battle-winning assets; but likeany other scarce resource, you must have a prior-itized "hump plan" in case you lose them. Oftenduring predeployment preparations the best use oflinguists is to train your command in basic lan-guage skills. You will probably not get augmenta-tion for all of this, but you must still do it. Put thesmartest Marines in the S-2 section and the R&Ssquad. You will have one less rifle squad, but theintelligence section will pay for itself in lives andeffort saved.

Article 4. Organize for interagency operations.Almost everything in counterinsurgency is intera-gency. And everything important—from policingto intelligence to civil-military operations to trashcollection—will involve your company workingwith civilian actors and local indigenous partnersyou cannot control but whose success is essentialfor yours. Train the company in interagency oper-ations. Get briefings from the State Department,aid agencies, and the local police or fire brigade.Train point men in each squad to deal with .theinteragency. Realize that civilians find rifles, hel-mets, and body armor intimidating. Learn how notto scare them. Ask others who come from thatcountry or culture about your ideas. See it throughthe eyes of a civilian who knows nothing aboutthe military. How would you react if foreignerscame to your neighborhood and conducted theoperations you planned? What if somebody cameto your mother's house and did that? Most impor-tantly, know that your operations will create tem-porary breathing space, but long-term develop-ment and stabilization by civilian agencies willultimately win the war.

Article 5. Travel light and harden your combatservice support (CSS). You will be weighed clownwith body armor, rations, extra ammunition, com-munications gear, and 1,000 other things. Theenemy will carry a rifle or rocket propelledgrenade, a shemagh (a traditional Arab head scarfworn as protection from bright sunlight, sun glare,and blowing sand in the desert), and a water bot-tle if he is lucky. Unless you ruthlessly lighten yourload and enforce a culture of speed and mobility,

the insurgents will consistently outrun and outma-neuver you. But in lightening your load, makesure you can always "reach back" to call for firepower or heavy support if needed. Also, remem-ber to harden your CSS. The enemy will attackyour weakest points. Most attacks on coalitionforces in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, outside of pre-planned combat actions like the two batles ofFallujah or Operation Iron Horse, were against CSSinstallations and convoys. You do the math.Ensure that your CSS assets are hardened, havecommunications, and are trained in combat oper-ations. They may do more fighting than your riflesquads.

Article 6 Find a political/cultural adviser In aforce optimized for counterinsurgency, you mightreceive a political/cultural adviser at companylevel—a diplomat or military foreign area officerwho is able to speak the language and navigatethe intricacies of local politics. Back on planetEarth, the division commander will get a politi-cal/cultural advisor. You will not, so you mustimprovise. Find a political/cultural adviser fromamong your people, perhaps an officer, perhapsnot. (See Article 8.) Someone with people skillsand a "feel" for the environment will do betterthan a political science graduate. Don't try to beyour own cultural adviser. You must be fullyaware of the political and cultural dimension, butthis is a different task. Also, don't give one of yourintelligence people this role. They can help, buttheir task is to understand the environment. Thepolitical adviser's job is to help shape it.

Article 7. Train the squad leaders and thentrust them. Counterinsurgency is a squad and pla-toon leader's war, and often a private Marine'swar. Battles are won or lost in moments. Whoevercan bring combat power to bear in seconds on aStreet corner will win. The commander on the spotcontrols the fight. You must train the squad lead-ers to act intelligently and independently withoutorders. If your squad leaders are competent, youcan get away with average company or platoonstaffs. The reverse is not the case. Training shouldfocus on basic skills—marksmanship, patrolling,security on the move and at the halt, and basicdrills. When in doubt, spend less time on compa-fly and platoon training and more time on squad

41

training. Ruthlessly replace leaders who do notmake the grade. But once people are trained, andyou have a shared operational "diagnosis," youmust trust them. We talk about this, but few com-pany or platoon leaders really trust their people.In counterinsurgency, you have no choice.

Article 8. Rank is nothing; talent is everything.Not everyone is good at counterinsurgency. Manypeople don't understand the concept, and somewho do can't execute it. It is difficult, and in a con-ventional force only a few people will master it.Anyone can learn the basics, but a few "naturals"do exist. Learn how to spot these people and putthem in positions where they can make a differ-ence. Rank matters far less than talent; a few goodmen under a smart junior noncommissioned offi-cer can succeed in counterinsurgency where hun-dreds of well-armed Marines under a mediocresenior officer will fail.

Article 9. Have a game plan. The final prepara-tion task is to develop a game plan—a mental pic-ture of how you see the operation developing.You will be tempted to try to do this too early. Butwait. As your knowledge improves, you will get abetter idea of what needs to be done and of yourown limitations. Like any plan, this plan willchange once you hit the ground and may need tobe scrapped if there is a major shift in the environ-ment. But you still need a plan, and the process ofplanning will give you a simple, robust idea ofwhat to achieve, even if the methods change. Thisis sometimes called "operational design." Oneapproach is to identify basic stages in your opera-tion. For example, establish dominance, buildlocal networks, and marginalize the enemy. Makesure you can easily transition between phases,both forward and backward in case of setbacks.Just as the insurgent can adapt his activity to yours,you must have a simple enough plan to survivesetbacks without collapsing. This plan is the "solu-tion" that matches the shared "diagnosis" youdeveloped earlier. It must be simple and known toeveryone.

The Golden Hour

You have deployed, completed reception andstaging, and (if you are lucky) attended the in-

country counterinsurgency school. Now it is time toenter your sector and start your tour. This is thegolden hour. Mistakes made now will haunt you forthe rest of the tour, while early successes will setthe tone for victory. You will look back on yourearly actions and cringe at your clumsiness. So beit, but you must act.

Article 10. Be there. The first rule of deploymentin counterinsurgency is to be there. You can almostnever outrun the enemy. If you are not presentwhen an incident happens, there is usually littleyou can do about it. So your first order of businessis to establish presence. If you cannot do thisthroughout your sector, then do it wherever youcan. Establishing presence demands a residentialapproach—living in your sector, in close proximityto the population, rather than raiding into the areafrom remote, secure bases. Movement on foot,sleeping in local villages, night patrolling, all ofthese seem more dangerous than they are. Theseactions establish links with the locals who see youas 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-trip-ping like a tourist in hell—degrades situationalawareness, makes you a target, and is ultimatelymore dangerous.

Article 11. Avoid knee-jerk responses to firstimpressions. Don't act rashly; get the facts first. Theviolence you see may be part of the insurgent strat-egy, it may he various interest groups fighting itOut, or it may he people settling personal vendet-tas. Or, it may just be daily life. "Normality" inKandahar is not the same as in Kansas. So you needtime to learn what normality looks like. The insur-gent commander also wants to goad you into lash-ing out at the population or making a mistake.Unless you happen to be on the spot when an inci-dent occurs, you will have only secondhand reportsand may misunderstand the local context or inter-pretation. This fragmentation and "disaggregation"of the battlefield—particularly in urban areas—means that first impressions are often highly mis-leading. Of course, you cannot avoid making judg-ments. But if possible, check them with an olderhand or a trusted local. If you can, keep one or twoofficers from your predecessor unit for the first partof the tour. Try to avoid a rush to judgment.

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Article 12. Prepare for bandover from day one.Believe it or not, you will not resolve the insur-gency on your watch. Your tour will end, andyour successors will need your corporate know!-edge. Start handover folders, in every platoon andspecialist squad, from day one. Ideally, you wouldhave inherited these from your predecessors, hutif not, you must start them. The folders shouldinclude lessons learned, details about the popula-tion, village and patrol reports, updated maps,photographs—anything that will help newcomersmaster the environment. Computerized databasesare fine, but keep good backups and ensure thatyou have a hard copy of key artifacts and docu-ments. This is boring, tedious, and essential. Overtime you will create a corporate memory thatkeeps your people alive.

Article 13. Build trusted networks. Once youhave settled into your sector, your next task is tobuild trusted networks. This is the true meaningof the phrase "hearts and minds," which compris-es two separate components. "Hearts" means per-suading people that their best interests are servedby your success; "minds" means convincing themthat you can protect them and that resisting you ispointless. Note that neither concept has to dowith whether people like you. Calculated self-interest, not emotion, is what counts. Over time, ifyou successfully build networks of trust, these willgrow like roots into the population, displacing theenemy's networks, bringing him out into the opento fight you, and seizing the initiative. These net-works include local allies, community leaders,local security forces, nongovernmental organiza-tions (NGOs) and other friendly or neutral non-state actors in your area, and the media. Conductvillage and neighborhood surveys to identifyneeds in the community and then follow throughto meet them, build common interests, and mobi-lize popular support. This is your true main effort;everything else is secondary. Actions that helpbuild trusted networks serve your cause.Actions—even killing high-profile targets—thatundermine trust or disrupt your networks help theenemy.

Article 14. Start easy. If you were trained inmaneuver warfare you know about surfaces andgaps. This theory applies to counterinsurgency as

much as any other form of maneuver. Don't try tocrack the hardest nut first. Don't go straight for themain insurgent stronghold, try to provoke a deci-sive showdown, or focus efforts on villages thatsupport the insurgents. Instead, start from secureareas and work gradually outward. Do this byextending your influence through the locals' ownnetworks. Go with, not against, the grain of localsociety. First win the confidence of a few villagesand then see with whom they trade, intermarry, ordo business. Now win these people over. Soonenough the showdown with the insurgents willcome. But now you have local allies, a mobilizedpopulation, and a trusted network at your back.Do it the other way around and no one willmourn your failure.

Article 15. Seek early victories. In this earlyphase your aim is to stamp your dominance inyour sector. Do this by seeking an early victory.This will probably not translate into a combat vic-tory over the enemy. Looking for such a victorycan be overly aggressive and create collateraldamage, especially since you really do not yetunderstand your sector. Also, such a combat vic-tory depends on the enemy being stupid enoughto presentyou with a clear-cut target, a rare wind-fall in counterinsurgency. Instead, you mayachieve a victory by resolving long-standingissues your predecessors have failed to address orco-opting a key local leader who has resistedcooperation with your forces. Like any other formof armed propaganda, achieving even a small vic-tory early in the tour sets the tone for what comeslater and helps seize the initiative, which youhave probably lost due to the inevitable hiatusentailed by the handover/takeover with yourpredecessor.

Article 16 Practice deterrent patrolling.Establish patrolling methods that deter the enemyfrom attacking you. Often our patrolling approachseems designed to provoke, then defeat, enemyattacks. This strategy is counterproductive; it leadsto a raiding, day-tripping mindset or, worse, abunker mentality. Instead, practice deterrentpatrolling. There are many methods for deterrentpatrolling, including "multiple" patrolling whereyou flood an area with numerous small patrolsworking together. Each is too small to be a worth-

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while target, and the insurgents never knowwhere all of the patrols are, making an attack onany one patrol extremely risky. Other methodsinclude so-called "blue-green" patrolling whereyou mount daylight overt humanitarian patrolsthat go covert at night and hunt specific targets.Again, the aim is to keep the enemy off balanceand the population reassured through constantand unpredictable activity that, over time, detersattacks and creates a more permissive environ-ment. A reasonable rule of thumb is that one- totwo-thirds of your force should be on patrol atany time, day or night.

Article 17. Be prepared for setbacks. Setbacksare normal in counterinsurgency, as in every otherform of war. You will make mistakes, lose people,or occasionally kill or detain the wrong person.You may fail in building or expanding networks.If this happens, don't lose heart. Simply drop backto the previous phase of your game plan andrecover your balance. It is normal in companycounterinsurgency operations for some platoonsto be doing well, while others do badly. This isnot necessarily evidence of failure. Give localcommanders the freedom to adjust their postureto local conditions. This freedom creates elasticitythat helps you survive setbacks.

Article 18. Remember the global audience. Oneof the biggest differences between the counterin-surgencies our fathers fought and those we facetoday is the omnipresence of globalized media.Most houses in Iraq have one or more satellitedishes. Web bloggers; print, radio, and televisionreporters; and others are monitoring and com-menting on your every move. When the insur-gents ambush your patrols or set off a car bomb,they do so not to destroy one more track, butbecause they want graphic images of a burningvehicle and dead bodies for the evening news.Beware of the "scripted enemy" who plays to aglobal audience and seeks to defeat you in thecourt of global public opinion. You counter thistactic by training people to always bear in mindthe global audience, assume that everything theysay or do will be publicized, and befriend themedia. Document everything you do. Have avideo or photographic record, or an independentwitness, wherever possible. This documentation

makes it harder for the enemy to put negative"spin" on your actions with disinformation. Getthe press on your side, help them get their story,and trade information with them. Good relation-ships with nonembedded media—especiallyindigenous media—dramatically increase your sit-uational awareness and help get your messageacross to the global and local audience.

Article 19. Engage the women; beware of thechildren. Most insurgent fighters are men. But intraditional societies, women are hugely influentialin forming the social networks that insurgents usefor support. Co-opting neutral or friendly womenthrough targeted social and economic programsbuilds networks of enlightened self-interest thateventually undermine the insurgents. You needyour own female counterinsurgents, includinginteragency people, to do this effectively. Win thewomen and you own the family unit. Own thefamily and you take a big step forward in mobi-lizing the population. Conversely, though, stopyour people from fraternizing with local children.Your troops are homesick; they want to drop theirguard with the kids. But children are sharp-eyed,lacking in empathy, and willing to commit atroci-ties that their elders would shrink from. The insur-gents are watching. They will notice a growingfriendship between one of your people and alocal child and either harm the child as punish-ment or use him against you. Similarly, stopthrowing candies or presents to children. It

attracts them to your vehicles, creates crowds theenemy can exploit, and leads to children beingrun over. Harden your heart and keep the chil-dren at arm's length.

Article 20. Take stock regularly. You probablyalready know that a "body count" tells you little,because you usually cannot know how manyinsurgents there were to start with, how manymoved into the area, how many transferred fromsupporter to combatant status, or how many newfighters the conflict has created. But you still needto develop metrics early in the tour and refinethem as the operation progresses. They shouldcover a range of social, informational, military,and economic issues. Use metrics intelligently toform an overall impression of progress—not in amechanical "traffic light" fashion. Typical metrics

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include percentage of engagements initiated byour forces versus those initiated by insurgents,longevity of friendly local leaders in positions ofauthority, number and quality of tip-offs on insur-gent activity that originate spontaneously from thepopulation, and economic activity at markets andshops. These mean virtually nothing as a snap-shot. Trends over time are the true indicators ofprogress in your sector.

Groundhog Day

Now you are in "steady state." You are estab-

lished in your sector, and people are settling intothat "groundhog day" mentality that hits everyunit at some stage during every tour. It will prob-ably take people at least the first third of the tourto become effective in the environment, if notlonger. Then in the last period you will struggleagainst the short-timer mentality. So this middlepart of the tour is the most productive. But keep-ing the flame alive and bringing the local popula-tion along with you takes immense leadership.

Article 21. Exploit a "single narrative." Sincecounterinsurgency is a competition to mobilizepopular support, it pays to know how people aremobilized. In most societies there are opinionmakers—local leaders, pillars of the community,religious figures, media personalities, and otherswho set trends and influence public perceptions.This influence—including the pernicious influ-ence of the insurgents—often takes the form of asingle narrative—a simple, unifying, easilyexpressed story or explanation that organizespeople's experience and provides a frameworkfor understanding events. Nationalist and ethnichistorical myths, or sectarian creeds, provide sucha narrative. The Iraqi insurgents have one, as doal-Qaeda and the Taliban. To undercut their influ-ence you must exploit an alternative narrative, orbetter yet, tap into an existing narrative thatexcludes the insurgents. This narrative is oftenworked out for you by higher headquarters, butonly you have the detailed knowledge to tailorthe narrative to local conditions and generateleverage from it. For example, you might use anationalist narrative to marginalize foreign fightersin your area, or a narrative of national redemption

to undermine former regime elements that havebeen terrorizing the population. At the companylevel you do this in baby steps by getting to knowlocal opinion makers, winning their trust, learningwhat motivates them, and building on this trust tofind a single narrative that emphasizes theinevitability and rightness of your ultimate suc-cess. This is art, not science.

Article 22. Local forces should mirror theenemy, not ourselves. By this stage you will beworking closely with local forces, training or sup-porting them, and building indigenous capability.The natural tendency is to build forces in our ownimage with the aim of eventually handing our roleover to them. This is a mistake. Instead, localindigenous forces need to mirror the enemy'scapabilities and seek to supplant the insurgent'srole. This does not mean they should be "irregu-lar" in the sense of being brutal or outside propercontrol. Rather, they should move, equip, andorganize like the insurgents but have access toyour support and be under the firm control oftheir parent societies Combined with a mobilizedpopulation and trusted networks, this allows localforces to "hardwire" the enemy out of the envi-ronment, under top cover from you. At the com-pany level, this means that raising, training, andemploying local indigenous auxiliary forces(police and military) are valid tasks. These tasksrequire high-level clearance, of course, but if sup-port is given, you should establish a companytraining cell. Platoons should aim to train onelocal squad and then use that squad as a nucleusfor a partner platoon. Company headquartersshould train an indigenous leadership team. Thismirrors the "growth" process of other trusted net-works and tends to emerge naturally as you winlocal allies who want to take up arms in their owndefense.

Article 23. Practice armed civil affairs.Counterinsurgency is armed social work, anattempt to redress basic social and political prob-lems while being shot at. This situation makescivil affairs a central counterinsurgency activity,not an afterthought. It is how you restructure theenvironment to displace the enemy from it. Inyour company sector, civil affairs must focus onmeeting basic needs first and then progress up

45.

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs as eachsuccessive need is met. A series of village orneighborhood surveys, regularly updated, is aninvaluable tool to help understand the popula-tion's needs and track progress in meeting themover time. You need intimate cooperation withinteragency partners here—national, international,and local. You will not be able to control thesepartners. Many NGOs, for example, do not wantto be too closely associated with you becausethey need to preserve their perceived neutrality.Instead, you need to work on a shared diagnosisof the problem, building a consensus that helpsyou self-synchronize. Your role is to provide pro-tection, identify needs, facilitate civil affairs, anduse improvements in social conditions as leverageto build networks and mobilize the population.Thus, there is no such thing as impartial humani-tarian assistance or civil affairs in counterinsur-gency. Every time you help someone, you hurtsomeone else—not the least the insurgents. Socivil and humanitarian assistance personnel willbe targeted. Protecting them is a matter not onlyof close-in defense, but also of creating a permis-sive operating environment by co-opting the ben-eficiaries of aid—local communities and leaders-to help you help them.

Article 24. Small is beautiful. Another naturaltendency is to go for large-scale, mass programs.In particular, we have a tendency to templateideas that succeed in one area and transplantthem into another, and we tend to take small pro-grams that work and try to replicate them on alarger scale. Again, this strategy is usually a mis-take. Often programs succeed because of specificlocal conditions of which we are unaware, orbecause their very smallness kept them below theenemy's radar and helped them flourish unmolest-ed. At the company level, programs that succeedin one district often also succeed in another(because the overall company sector is small), butsmall-scale projects rarely proceed smoothly intolarge programs. Keep programs small. Small scalemakes them cheap, sustainable, low key, and(importantly) recoverable if they fail. You can addnew programs—also small, cheap, and tailored tolocal conditions—as the situation allows.

Article 25. Fight the enemy's strategy, not his

forces. At this stage, if things are proceeding well,the insurgents will go over to the offensive. Yes,the offensive because you have created a situationso dangerous to the insurgents, by threatening todisplace them from the environment, that theyhave to attack you and the population to get backinto the game. Thus it is normal, even in the mostsuccessful operations, to have spikes of offensiveinsurgent activity late in the campaign. This activ-ity does not necessarily mean you have donesomething wrong (though it may—it depends onwhether you have successfully mobilized the pop-ulation). At this point the tendency is to go for thejugular and seek to destroy the enemy's forces inopen battle. This strategy is rarely the best choiceat the company level, because provoking majorcombat usually plays into the enemy's hands byundermining the population's confidence.Instead, attack the enemy's strategy. If he is seek-ing to recapture the allegiance of a segment of thelocal population, then co-opt them against him. Ifhe is trying to provoke a sectarian conflict, goover to "peace enforcement mode." The permuta-tions are endless, but the principle is the same—fight the enemy's strategy, not his forces.

Article 26 Build your own solution—onlyattack the enemy when he gets in the way. Try notto be distracted or forced into a series of reactivemoves by a desire to kill or capture the insur-gents. Your aim should he to implement yourown solution—the game plan you developedearly in the campaign and then refined throughinteraction with local partners. Your approachmust be environment-centric (based on dominat-ing the whole district and implementing a solutionto its systemic problems) rather than enemy cen-tric. This means that, particularly late in the cam-paign, you may need to learn to negotiate withthe enemy. Members of the population that sup-port you also know the enemy's leaders (theymay have grown up together in the small districtthat is now your company sector), and validnegotiating partners sometimes emerge as thecampaign progresses. Again, you need close inter-agency relationships to exploit opportunities toco-opt segments of the enemy. This helps youwind down the insurgency without alienatingpotential local allies who have relatives or friends

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in the insurgent movement. At this stage, a defec-tion is better than a surrender, a surrender is bet-ter than a capture, and a capture is better than akill.

Getting Short

Time is short, and the tour is drawing to aclose. The key problem now is keeping your peo-pie focused, preventing them from dropping theirguard, and maintaining the rage on all of the mul-tifarious programs, projects, and operations thatyou have started. In this final phase, the previousarticles still stand, but there is an important newone.

Article 27. Keep your extraction plan secret.The temptation to talk about home becomesalmost unbearable toward the end of a tour. Thelocals know you are leaving and probably have abetter idea than you of the generic extractionplan. Remember, they have seen units come andgo. But you must protect the specific details of theextraction plan, or the enemy will use this time asan opportunity to score a high-profile hit, recap-ture the population's allegiance by scare tacticsthat convince them they will not be protectedonce you leave, or persuade them that your suc-cessor unit will be oppressive or incompetent.Keep the details secret, within a tightly controlledcompartment in your headquarters. And resist thetemptation to say goodbye to local allies. You canalways send a postcard from home.

Four 'What Ifs'The articles above describe what should hap-

pen, but we all know that things go wrong. Hereare some "what ifs" to consider.

What fyou get moved to a dfferent area?You prepared for Ramadi and studied Dulaimtribal structures and Sunni beliefs. Now you aregoing to Najaf and will be surrounded by al-Hassan and Unizzah tribes and Shi'a communi-ties. But that work was not wasted. In masteringyour first area, you learned techniques you canapply—how to "case" an operational area orhow to decide what matters in the local societalstructure. Do the same again. This time the

process is easier and faster. You have an existingmental structure and can focus on what is differ-ent. The same applies if you get moved frequent-ly within a battalion or brigade area.

What if higher headquarters doesn't 'get"counterinsurgency? Higher headquarters is

telling you that the mission is to "kill terrorists"or is pushing for high-speed armored patrols anda base camp mentality. They just do not seem tounderstand counterinsurgency. This is notuncommon since company grade officers todayoften have more combat experience than seniorofficers. In this case, just do what you can. Trynot to create expectations that higher headquar-ters will not let you meet. Apply the adage "firstdo no harm." Over time you will find ways to dowhat you have to do. But never lie to higherheadquarters about your locations or activities:They own the indirect fires.

What if you have no resources? Yours is alow-priority sector. You have no linguists, the aidagencies have no money for projects in yourarea, and you have a low priority for funding.You can still get things done, but you need tofocus on self-reliance, keeping things small andsustainable, and ruthlessly prioritize effort. Localcommunity leaders are your allies. They knowwhat matters to them more than you do. Be hon-est with them, discuss possible projects andoptions with community leaders, and get them tochoose what their priorities are. Often they willfind the translators, building supplies, or expert-ise that you need and will only expect your sup-port and protection in making their projectswork. And the process of negotiation and con-sultation will help mobilize their support andstrengthen their social cohesion. If you set yoursights on what is achievable, the situation canstill work.'

What if the theater situation shifts underyour feet? It is your worst nightmare. Everythinghas gone well in your sector, but the whole the-ater situation has changed and invalidates yourefforts. Think of the first battle of Fallujah, the al-Askariya shrine bombing, or the Sadr uprising.What do you do? Here is where having a flexi-ble, adaptive game plan comes in. Just as theinsurgents drop down to a lower posture whenthings go wrong, now is the time to drop back a

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stage, consolidate, regain your balance, and pre-pare to expand again when the situation allows.But, see Article 28. If you cede the initiative, youmust regain it as soon as the situation allows, oryou will eventually lose.

Conclusion

This then is the tribal wisdom, the folklorethat those who went before you have learned.Like any folklore it needs interpretation and con-tains seemingly contradictory advice. Over time,as you apply unremitting intellectual effort tostudy your sector, you will learn to apply theseideas in your own way and will add to this storeof wisdom from your own observations andexperience. So only one article remains. If youremember nothing else, remember this one.

Article 28. Whatever else you do, keep the initia-tive. In counterinsurgency, the initiative is every-thing. If the enemy is reacting to you, you controlthe environment. Provided you mobilize the pop-ulation, you will win. If you are reacting to theenemy—even if you are killing or capturing him inlarge numbers—then he is controlling the environ-ment, and you will eventually lose. In counterin-surgency, the enemy initiates most attacks, targetsyou unexpectedly, and withdraws too fast for youto react. Do not be drawn into purely reactiveoperations. Focus on the population, build yourown solution, further your game plan, and fightthe enemy only when he gets in the way. Thisstrategy gains and keeps the initiative.

NotesMarine Corps Gazette, July 2006, 53-60.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright Marine CorpsGazette.

About the AuthorDavid Kilcullen is a partner at the Crumpton Group, aWashington-based strategic advisory firm, and author of The

Accidental Guerrilla. Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big

One (2009). A former Australian infantry officer with 22 years'

service, including operational deployments in East TimoiBougainville, and the Middle East, he was a senior counterinsur-

gency advisor to General David H. Petraeus, USA, in Iraq in 2007

and a special advisor for counterinsurgency to Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice in 2008.

Learning Counterinsurgency: Observationsfrom Soldiering in Iraq

by Lieutenant General David H Petraeus, USAMilitary Review, January-February 2006

The Army has learned a great deal in Iraqand Afghanistan about the conduct of coun-terinsurgency operations, and we must con-

tinue to learn all that we can from our experiencesin those countries.

The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan werenot, in truth, the wars for which we were best pre-pared in 2001; however, they are the wars we arefighting and they clearly are the kind of wars wemust master. America's overwhelming convention-al military superiority makes it unlikely that futureenemies will confront us head on. Rather, they willattack us asymmetrically, avoiding our strengths—firepower, maneuver, technology—and come at usand our partners the way the insurgents do in Iraqand Afghanistan. It is imperative, therefore, thatwe continue to learn from our experiences inthose countries, both to succeed in those endeav-ors and to prepare for the future.

Soldiers and Observations

Writing down observations and lessons learnedis a time-honored tradition of Soldiers. Most of ushave done this to varying degrees, and we thenreflect on and share what we've jotted down afterreturning from the latest training exercise, mission,or deployment. Such activities are of obviousimportance in helping us learn from our ownexperiences and from those of others.

In an effort to foster learning as an organiza-tion, the Army institutionalized the process of col-lection, evaluation, and dissemination of observa-tions, insights, and lessons some 20 years ago withthe formation of the Center for Army LessonsLearned.1 In subsequent years, the other militaryservices and the Joint Forces Command followedsuit, forming their own lessons learned centers.More recently, the Internet and other knowledge-management tools have sped the processes of col-

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lection, evaluation, and dissemination enormously.Numerous products have already been issuedsince the beginning of our operations inAfghanistan and Iraq, and most of us have foundthese products of considerable value as we've pre-pared for deployments and reviewed how differ-ent units grappled with challenges our elementswere about to face.

For all their considerable worth, the institution-al structures for capturing lessons are still depend-ent on soldiers' thoughts and reflections. And sol-diers have continued to record their own observa-tions, particularly in recent years as we haveengaged in so many important operations. Indeed,my own pen and notebook were always handywhile soldiering in Iraq, where I commanded the101st Airborne Division during our first year there(during the fight to Baghdad and the division'ssubsequent operations in Iraq's four northernprovinces), and where, during most of the subse-quent year-and-a-half, I helped with the so-called"train and equip" mission, conducting an assess-ment in the spring of 2004 of the Iraqi securityforces after their poor performance in early April2004, and then serving as the first commander ofthe Multi National Security Transition Command-Iraq and the NATO Training Mission-Iraq.

What follows is the distillation of a number ofobservations jotted down during that time. Someof these observations are specific to soldiering inIraq, hut the rest speak to the broader challenge ofconducting counterinsurgency operations in a

vastly different culture than our own. I offer 14 ofthose observations here in the hope that otherswill find them of assistance as they prepare toserve in Iraq or Afghanistan or in similar missionsin the years ahead.

Fourteen Observations

Observation Number 1 is 'Do not try to do toomuch with your own hands." T. E. Lawrenceoffered this wise counsel in an article published

in The Arab Bulletin in August 1917. Continuing,he wrote: "Better the Arabs do it tolerably thanthat you do it perfectly. It is their war, and youare to help them, not win it for them. Actually,also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia,your practical work will not be as good as, per-haps, you think it is. It may take them longer andit may not be as good as you think, hut if it istheirs, it will be better."2

Lawrence's guidance is as relevant in the 21stcentury as it was in his own time in the MiddleEast during World War I. Like much good advice,however, it is sometimes easier to put forwardthan it is to follow. Our Army is blessed withhighly motivated soldiers who pride themselveson being action oriented. We celebrate a "cando" spirit, believe in taking the initiative, andwant to get on with. business. Yet, despite thediscomfort in trying to follow Lawrence's adviceby not doing too much with our own hands,such an approach is absolutely critical to successin a situation like that in Iraq. Indeed, many ofour units recognized early on that it was impor-tant that we not just perform tasks for the Iraqis,but that we help our Iraqi partners, over timeenabling them to accomplish tasks on their ownwith less and less assistance from us.

Empowering Iraqis to do the job themselveshas, in fact, become the essence of our strate-gy—and such an approach is particularly appli-cable in Iraq. Despite suffering for decadesunder Saddam, Iraq still has considerable humancapital, with the remnants of an educated middleclass, a number of budding entrepreneurs, andmany talented leaders. Moreover, the Iraqis, ofcourse, know the situation and people far betterthan we ever can, and unleashing their produc-tivity is essential to rebuilding infrastructure andinstitutions. Our experience, for example, inhelping the Iraqi military reestablish its staff col-leges and branch-specific shools has been that,once a good Iraqi leader is established as thehead of the school, he can take it from there,albeit with some degree of continued Coalitionassistance. The same has been true in manyother areas, including in helping establish certainArmy units (such as the Iraqi Army's 9th Division(Mechanized), based north of Baghdad at Taji,

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and the 8th Division, which has units in fiveprovinces south of Baghdad) and police acade-mies (such as the one in Hillah, run completelyby Iraqis for well over six months). Indeed, ourability to assist rather than do has evolved con-siderably since the transition of sovereignty atthe end of late June 2004 and even more so sincethe elections of 30 January 2005. I do not, to besure, want to downplay in the least the amountof work still to be done or the daunting chal-lenges that lie ahead; rather, I simply want toemphasize the importance of empowering,enabling, and assisting the Iraqis, an approachthat figures prominently in our strategy in thatcountry.

Observation Number 2 is that, in a Situationlike Iraq, the liberating force must act quickly,because every army of liberation has a half-lifebeyond which it turns into an army of occupa-tion. The length of this half-life is tied to the per-ceptions of the populace about the impact of theliberating force's activities. From the moment aforce enters a country, its leaders must keep thisin mind, striving to meet the expectations of theliberated in what becomes a race against theclock.

This race against the clock in Iraq has beencomplicated by the extremely high expectationsof the Iraqi people, their pride in their own abil-ities, and their reluctant admission that theyneeded help from Americans, in particular.3Recognizing this, those of us on the ground atthe outset did all that we could with theresources available early on to help the people,to repair the damage done by military operationsand looting, to rebuild infrastructure, and torestore basic services as quickly as possible—ineffect, helping extend the half-life of the army ofliberation. Even while carrying out such activi-ties, however, we were keenly aware that soon-er or later, the people would begin to view us asan army of occupation. Over time, the local citi-zenry would feel that we were not doing enoughor were not moving as quickly as desired, wouldsee us damage property and hurt innocent civil-ians in the course of operations, and wouldresent the inconveniences and intrusion ofcheckpoints, low helicopter flights, and other

military activities. The accumulation of these per-ceptions, coupled with the natural pride of Iraqisand resentment that their country, so blessed innatural resources, had to rely on outsiders,would eventually result in us being seen less asliberators and more as occupiers. That has, ofcourse, been the case to varying degrees in muchof Iraq.

The obvious implication of this is that suchendeavors—especially in situations like those inIraq—are a race against the clock to achieve asquickly as possible the expectations of those lib-erated. And, again, those expectations, in thecase of Iraqi citizens, have always been very highindeed.4

Observation Number 3 is that, in an endeavorlike that in Iraq, money is ammunition. In fact,depending on the situation, money can be moreimportant than real ammunition—and that hasoften been the case in Iraq since early April 2003when Saddam's regime collapsed and the focusrapidly shifted to reconstruction, economicrevival, and restoration of basic services. Oncemoney is available, the challenge is to spend iteffectively and quickly to rapidly achieve meas-urable results. This leads to a related observationthat the money needs to be provided as soon aspossible to the organizations that have the capa-bility and capacity to spend it in such a manner.

So-called CERP (Commander's EmergencyReconstruction Program) funds—funds createdby the Coalition Provisional Authority with cap-tured Iraqi money in response to requests fromunits for funds that could be put to use quicklyand with minimal red tape—proved very impor-tant in Iraq in the late spring and summer of2003. These funds enabled units on the groundto complete thousands of small projects thatwere, despite their low cost, of enormous impor-tance to local citizens.5 Village schools, forexample, could be repaired and refurbished byless than $10,000 at that time, and units like the101st Airborne Division carried out hundreds ofschool repairs alone. Other projects funded byCERP in our area included refurbishment ofMosul University, repairs to the Justice Center,numerous road projects, countless water proj-ects, refurbishment of cement and asphalt facto-

51

ries, repair of a massive irrigation system, sup-port for local elections, digging of dozens ofwells, repair of police stations, repair of an oilrefinery, purchase of uniforms and equipmentfor Iraqi forces, construction of small Iraqi Armytraining and operating bases, repairs to parksand swimming pools, support for youth soccerteams, creation of employment programs, refur-bishment of medical facilities, creation of a cen-tral Iraqi detention facility, establishment of asmall business loan program, and countless othersmall initiatives that made big differences in thelives of the Iraqis we were trying to help.

The success of the CERP concept led Congressto appropriate additional CERP dollars in the fallof 2003, and additional appropriations have con-tinued ever since. Most commanders wouldagree, in fact, that CERP dollars have been ofenormous value to the effort in Iraq (and inAfghanistan, to which the concept migrated in2003 as well).

Beyond being provided money, those organi-zations with the capacity and capability to put itto use must also be given reasonable flexibility inhow they spend at least a portion of the money,so that it can be used to address emergingneeds—which are inevitable. This is particularlyimportant in the case of appropriated funds. Therecognition of this need guided our requests forresources for the Iraqi security forces "train andequip" mission, and the result was a substantialamount of flexibility in the 2005 supplementalfunding measure that has served that missionvery well, especially as our new organizationachieved the capability and capacity needed torapidly put to use the resources allocated to it.6

Observation Number 4 reminds us thatincreasing the number of stakeholders is criticalto success. This insight emerged several monthsinto our time in Iraq as we began to realize thatmore important than our winning Iraqi heartsand minds was doing all that we could to ensurethat as many Iraqis as possible felt a stake in thesuccess of the new Iraq. Now, I do not want todownplay the importance of winning hearts andminds for the Coalition, as that extends the half-life I described earlier, something that is of obvi-ous desirability. But more important was the idea

of Iraqis wanting the new Iraq to succeed. Overtime, in fact, we began asking, when consideringnew initiatives, projects, or programs, whetherthey would help increase the number of Iraqiswho felt they had a stake in the country's suc-cess. This guided us well during the time that the10 1st Airborne Division was in northern Iraq andagain during a variety of initiatives pursued aspart of the effort to help Iraq reestablish its secu-rity forces. And it is this concept, of course, thatundoubtedly is behind the reported efforts of theU.S. Ambassador in Iraq to encourage Shi'a andKurdish political leaders in Iraq to reach out toSunni Arab leaders and to encourage them tohelp the new Iraq succeed.

The essence of Observation Number 5—thatwe should analyze costs and benefits of opera-tions before each operation—is captured in aquestion we developed over time and used toask before the conduct of operations: "Will thisoperation," we asked, 'take more bad guys offthe Street than it creates by the way it is conduct-ed?" If the answer to that question was, "No,"then we took a very hard look at the operationbefore proceeding.

In 1986, General John Galvin, thenCommander in Chief of the U.S. SouthernCommand (which was supporting the counterin-surgency effort in El Salvador), described thechallenge captured in this observation very effec-tively: "The ... burden on the military institutionis large. Not only must it subdue an armed adver-sary while attempting to provide security to thecivilian population, it must also avoid furtheringthe insurgents' cause. If, for example, the mili-tary's actions in killing 50 guerrillas cause 200previously uncommitted citizens to join theinsurgent cause, the use of force will have beencounterproductive. "

To be sure, there are occasions when oneshould he willing to take more risk relative tothis question. One. example was the 101stAirborne Division operation to capture or killUday and Qusay. In that case, we ended up fir-ing well over a dozen antitank missiles into thehouse they were occupying (knowing that all thefamily members were safely out of it) after Udayand Qusay refused our call to surrender and

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wounded three of our soldiers during twoattempts to capture them.8

In the main, however, we sought to carry outoperations in a way that minimized the chancesof creating more enemies than we captured orkilled. The idea was to try to end each day withfewer enemies than we had when it started. Thuswe preferred targeted operations rather thansweeps, and as soon as possible after completionof an operation, we explained to the citizens inthe affected areas what we'd done and why wedid it.

This should not be taken to indicate that wewere the least bit reluctant about going after theSaddamists, terrorists, or insurgents; in fact, theopposite was the case. In one night in Mosulalone, for example, we hit 35 targets simultane-ously, getting 23 of those we were after, withonly one or two shots fired and most of the oper-ations requiring only a knock on a door, viceblowing it down. Such operations obviouslydepended on a sophisticated intelligence struc-ture, one largely based on human intelligencesources and very similar to the Joint InteragencyTask Forces for Counter-Terrorism that wereestablished in various locations after 9/11.

That, logically, leads to Observation Number6, which holds that intelligence is the key to suc-cess. It is, after all, detailed, actionable intelli-gence that enables "cordon and knock" opera-tions and precludes large sweeps that oftenprove counterproductive. Developing such intel-ligence, however, is not easy. Substantial assetsat the local (i.e., division or brigade) level arerequired to develop human intelligence net-works and gather sufficiently precise informationto allow targeted operations.. For us, preciseinformation generally meant a 10-digit grid forthe target's location, a photo of the entry point,a reasonable description of the target, and direc-tions to the target's location, as well as otherinformation on the neighborhood, the target site,and the target himself. Gathering this informationis hard; considerable intelligence and operationalassets are required, all of which must be pulledtogether to focus (and deconflict) the collection,analytical, and operational efforts. But it is pre-cisely this type of approach that is essential to

preventing terrorists and insurgents from puttingdown roots in an area and starting the process ofintimidation and disruption that can result in acatastrophic downward spiral.

Observation Number 7, which springs fromthe fact that civil affairs are not enough whenundertaking huge reconstruction and nation-building efforts, is that everyone must do nation-building. This should not be taken to indicatethat I have anything but the greatest of respectfor our civil affairs personnel, because I holdthem in very high regard. I have personallywatched them work wonders in Central America,Haiti, the Balkans, and, of course, Iraq. Rather,my point is that when undertaking industrial-strength reconstruction on the scale of that inIraq, civil affairs forces alone will not suffice;every unit must be involved.

Reopening the University of Mosul broughtthis home to those of us in the 10 1st AirborneDivision in the spring of 2003. A symbol of con-siderable national pride, the university had grad-uated well over a hundred thousand studentssince its establishment in 1967. Shortly after theseating of the interim governor and provincecouncil in Nineveh Province in early May 2003,the council's members established completion ofthe school year at the university as among theirtop priorities. We thus took a quick trip throughthe university to assess the extent of the damageand to discuss reopening with the chancellor. Wethen huddled with our civil affairs battalion com-mander to chart a way ahead, but we quicklyfound that, although the talent inherent in thebattalion's education team was impressive, itsmembers were relatively junior in rank and itssize (numbering less than an infantry squad) wassimply not enough to help the Iraqis repair andreopen a heavily-looted institution of over 75buildings, some 4,500 staff and faculty, andapproximately 30-35,000 students. The mission,and the education team, therefore, went to oneof the two aviation brigades of the 101stAirborne Division, a brigade that clearly did nothave "Rebuild Foreign Academic Institutions" inits mission .essential task list. What the brigadedid have, however, was a senior commander andstaff, as well as numerous subordinate units with

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commanders and staffs, who collectively addedup to considerable organizational capacity andcapability.

Seeing this approach work with MosulUniversity, we quickly adopted the sameapproach in virtually every area—assigning aunit or element the responsibility for assistingeach of the Iraqi Ministries' activities in northernIraq and also for linking with key Iraqi leaders.For example, our signal battalion incorporatedthe civil affairs battalion's communications teamand worked with the Ministry ofTelecommunications element in northern Iraq,helping reestablish the local telecommunicationsstructure, including assisting with a deal thatbrought a satellite downlink to the central switchand linked Mosul with the international phonesystem, producing a profit for the province (sub-scribers bore all the costs). Our chaplain and histeam linked with the Ministry of Religious Affairs,the engineer battalion with the Ministry of PublicWorks, the division support command with theMinistry of Youth and Sports, the corps supportgroup with the Ministry of Education, the militarypolice battalion with the Ministry of Interior(Police), our surgeon and his team with theMinistry of Health, our staff judge advocate withMinistry of Justice officials, our fire support ele-ment with the Ministry of Oil, and so on. In fact,we lined up a unit or staff section with everyministry element and with all the key leaders andofficials in our AOR, and our subordinate unitsdid the same in their areas of responsibility. Bythe time we were done, everyone and every ele-ment, not just civil affairs units, was engaged innation-building.

Observation Number 8, recognition of theneed to help build institutions, not just units,came from the Coalition mission of helping Iraqreestablish its security forces. We initially focusedprimarily on developing combat l4nits—army andpolice battalions and brigade headquarters—aswell as individual police. While those are whatIraq desperately needed to help in the achieve-ment of security, for the long term there was alsoa critical need to help rebuild the institutions thatsupport the units and police in the field—theministries, the admin and logistical support units,

admin policies and procedures, and the trainingorganizations. In fact, lack of ministry capabilityand capacity can undermine the development ofthe battalions, brigades, and divisions, if the min-istries, for example, don't pay the soldiers orpolice on time, use political rather than profes-sional criteria in picking leaders, or fail to paycontractors as required for services provided.This lesson underscored for us the importance ofproviding sufficient advisors and mentors toassist with the development of the security min-istries and their elements, just as we providedadvisor teams with each battalion and eachbrigade and division headquarters.9

Observation Number 9, cultural awareness isa force multiplier, reflects our recognition thatknowledge of the cultural "terrain" can be asimportant as, and sometimes even more impor-tant than, knowledge of the geographic terrain.This observation acknowledges that the peopleare, in many respects, the decisive terrain, andthat we must study that terrain in the same waythat we have always studied the geographic ter-rain.

Working in another culture is enormously dif-ficult if one doesn't understand the ethnicgroups, tribes, religious elements, political par-ties, and other social groupings—and theirrespective viewpoints; the relationships amongthe various groups; governmental structures andprocesses; local and regional history; and, ofcourse, local and national leaders. Understandingof such cultural aspects is essential if one is tohelp the people build stable political, social, andeconomic institutions. Indeed, this is as much amatter of common sense as operational necessi-ty. Beyond the intellectual need for the specificknowledge about the environment in which oneis working, it is also clear that people, in gener-al, are more likely to cooperate if those whohave power over them respect the culture thatgives them a sense of identity and self-worth.

In truth, many of us did a lot of "discoverylearning" about such features of Iraq in the earlymonths of our time there. And those wholearned the quickest—and who also masteredsOme "survival Arabic"—were, not surprisingly,

tionships with local leaders and citizens andachieved the most progress in helping establishsecurity, local governance, economic activity,and basic services. The importance of culturalawareness has, in fact, been widely recognizedin the U.S. Army and the other services, and it iscritical that we continue the progress that hasbeen made in this area in our exercises, militaryschools, doctrine, and so on.1°

Observation Number 10 is a statement of theobvious, fully recognized by those operating inIraq, but it is one worth recalling nonetheless. Itis that success in a counterinsurgency requiresmore than just military operations. Counter-insurgency strategies must also include, aboveall, efforts to establish a political environmentthat helps reduce support for the insurgents andundermines the attraction of whatever ideologythey may espouse.11 In certain Sunni Arabregions of Iraq, establishing such a political envi-ronment is likely of greater importance than mil-itary operations, since the right political initia-tives might undermine the sanctuary and assis-tance provided to the insurgents. Beyond thepolitical arena, other important factors are eco-nomic recovery (which reduces unemployment,a serious challenge in Iraq that leads some out-of-work Iraqis to be guns for hire), education(which opens up employment possibilities andaccess to information from outside one's normalcircles), diplomatic initiatives (in particular,working with neighboring states through whichforeign fighters transit), improvement in the pro-vision of basic services, and so on. In fact, thecampaign plan developed in 2005 by the MultiNational Force-Iraq and the U.S. embassy withIraqi and Coalition leaders addresses each ofthese issues.

Observation Number 11—ultimate successdepends on local leaders—is a natural reflectionof Iraqi sovereignty and acknowledges that suc-cess in Iraq is, as time passes, increasinglydependent on Iraqi leaders-at four levels:

•• Leaders at the national level working together,reaching across party and sectarian lines to keepthe country unified, rejecting short-term expedi-

the professional military education systems, the most effective in developing productive rela-

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ent solutions such as the use of militias, and pur-suing initiatives to give more of a stake in thesuccess of the new Iraq to those who feel leftout;

• Leaders in the ministries building the capabil-ity and capacity necessary to use the tremendousresources Iraq has efficiently, transparently, hon-estly, and effectively;

•. Leaders at the province level resisting tempta-tions to pursue winner-take-all politics and resist-ing the urge to politicize the local police andother security forces, and;

• Leaders in the security forces staying out ofpolitics, providing courageous, competent lead-ership to their units, implementing policies thatare fair to all members of their forces, and foster-ing loyalty to their army or police band of broth-ers rather than to specific tribes, ethnic groups,political parties, or local militias.

Iraqi leaders are, in short, the real key to thenew Iraq, and we thus need to continue to do allthat we can to enable them.

Observation Number 12 is the admonition toremember the strategic corporals and strategiclieutenants, the relatively junior commissionedor noncommissioned officers who often have tomake huge decisions, sometimes with life-or-death as well as strategic consequences, in theblink of an eye.

Commanders have two major obligations tothese junior leaders: first, to do everything possi-ble to train them before deployment for the var-ious situations they will face, particularly for themost challenging and ambiguous ones; and, sec-ond, once deployed, to try to shape situations tominimize the cases in which they have to makethose hugely important decisions extremelyquickly.

The best example of the latter is what we doto help ensure that, when establishing hastycheckpoints, our strategic corporals are providedsufficient training and adequate means to stop avehicle speeding toward them without having toput a bullet through the windshield. This is, in

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truth, easier said than it is done in the oftenchaotic situations that arise during a fast-movingoperation in such a challenging security environ-ment. But there are some actions we can take totry to ensure that our young leaders have ade-quate time to make the toughest of calls—deci-sions that, if not right, again, can have strategicconsequences.

My next-to-last observation, Number 13, is

that there is no substitute for flexible adaptableleaders. The key to many of our successes inIraq, in fact, has been leaders—especially youngleaders—who have risen to the occasion andtaken on tasks for which they'd had little or notraining,12 and who have demonstrated enor-mous initiative, innovativeness, determination,and courage.13 Such leaders have repeatedlybeen the essential ingredient in many of theachievements in Iraq. And fostering the develop-ment of others like them clearly is critical to thefurther development of our Army and our mili-tary.14

My final observation, Number 14, underscoresthat, especially in counterinsurgency operations,a leader's most important task is to set the righttone. This is, admittedly, another statement of theobvious, but one that nonetheless needs to behighlighted given its tremendous importance.Setting the right tone and communicating thattone to his subordinate leaders and troopers areabsolutely critical for every leader at every level,especially in an endeavor like that in Iraq.

If, for example, a commander clearly empha-sizes so-called kinetic operations over non-kinet-ic operations, his subordinates will do likewise.As a result, they may thus be less inclined toseize opportunities for the nation-buildingaspects of the campaign. In fact, even in the101st Airborne Division, which prided itself onits attention to nation-building, there were a fewmid-level commanders early on whose heartsreally weren't into performing civil affairs tasks,assisting with reconstruction, developing rela-tionships with local citizens, or helping establishlocal governance. To use the jargon of Iraq atthat time, they didn't "get it." In such cases, thecommanders above them quickly established thatnation-building activities were not optional and

would be pursued with equal enthusiasm toraids and other offensive operations.

Setting the right tone ethically is anotherhugely important task. If leaders fail to get thisright, winking at the mistreatment of detainees orat manhandling of citizens, for example, theresult can be a sense in the unit that "anythinggoes." Nothing can be more destructive in an ele-ment than such a sense.

In truth, regardless of the leader's tone, mostunits in Iraq have had to deal with cases inwhich mistakes have been made in these areas,where young leaders in very frustrating situa-tions, often after having suffered very toughcasualties, took missteps. The key in these situa-tions is for leaders to ensure that appropriateaction is taken in the wake of such incidents, thatstandards are clearly articulated and reinforced,that remedial training is conducted, and thatsupervision is exercised to try to preclude recur-rences.

It is hard to imagine a tougher environmentthan that in some of the areas in Iraq.Frustrations, anger, and resentment can run highin such situations. That recognition underscores,again, the importance of commanders at everylevel working hard to get the tone right and tocommunicate it throughout their units.

Implications

These are, again, 14 observations from sol-diering in Iraq for most of the first two and a halfyears of our involvement there. Although I pre-sented them as discrete lessons, many are inex-tricably related. These observations carry withthem a number of implications for our effort inIraq (and for our Army as well, as I have notedin some of the footnotes).15

It goes without saying that success in Iraq—which clearly is important not just for Iraq, butfor the entire Middle East region and for our owncountry—will require continued military opera-tions and support for the ongoing developmentof Iraqi security forces.

Success will also require continued assistanceand resources for the development of the emerg-ing political, economic, and social institutions in

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Iraq-efforts in which Ambassador ZalmayKhalilzad and General George Casey and theirteams have been engaged with their Iraqi coun-terparts and have been working very hard.

Lastly, success will require time, determina-tion, and resilience, keeping in mind that follow-ing the elections held in mid-December 2005,several months will likely be required for thenew government—the fourth in an 18-monthperiod—to be established and functional. Theinsurgents and extremists did all that they couldto derail the preparations for the constitutionalreferendum in mid-October and the elections inmid-December. Although they were ineffective ineach case, they undoubtedly will try to disruptthe establishment of the new government—andthe upcoming provincial elections—as well. AsGenerals John Abizaid and George Casey madeclear in their testimony on Capitol Hill inSeptember 2005, however, there is a strategy—developed in close coordination with those inthe U.S. embassy in Baghdad and with our inter-agency, Coalition, and Iraqi partners—thataddresses the insurgency, Iraqi security forces,and the other relevant areas. And there has beensubstantial progress in a number of areas.Nonetheless, nothing is ever easy in Iraq and agreat deal of hard work and many challengesclearly lie ahead.16

The first six months of 2006 thus will be ofenormous importance, with the efforts of Iraqileaders being especially significant during thisperiod as a new government is seated and thenew constitution enters into force. It will beessential that we do all that we can to supportIraq's leaders as they endeavor to make the mostof the opportunity our soldiers have given them.

Conclusion

In a 1986 article titled "Uncomfortable Wars:Toward a New Paradigm," General John R.Galvin observed that "an officer's effectivenessand chance for success, now and in the future,depend not only on his character, knowledge,and skills, but also, and more than ever before,on his ability to understand the changing envi-ronment of conflict."17 General Galvin's words

were relevant then, but they are even moreapplicable today. Conducting counterinsurgencyoperations in a vastly different culture is exceed-ingly complex.

Later, in the same article, noting that we in themilitary typically have our noses to the grind-stone and that we often live a somewhat clois-tered existence, General Galvin counseled: "Letus get our young leaders away from the grind-stone now and then, and encourage them toreflect on developments outside the fortress-cloister. Only then will they develop into leaderscapable of adapting to the changed environmentof warfare and able to fashion a new paradigmthat addresses all the dimensions of the conflictsthat may lie ahead."18

Given the current situation, General Galvin'sadvice again appears very wise indeed. And it ismy hope that, as we all take time to lift our nosesfrom the grindstone and look beyond the con-fines of our current assignments, the observa-tions provided here will help foster useful discus-sion on our ongoing endeavors and on how weshould approach similar conflicts in the future-conflicts that are likely to be the norm, ratherthan the exception, in the 21st century.

Notes

Military Review, January-February 2006, 2-12.Reprinted by permission.

1. The Center for Army Lessons Learned website canbe found at <http://call.Army.mil/>.2. T. E. Lawrence. "Twenty-Seven Articles," ArabBulletin (20 August 1917). Known popularly as"Lawrence of Arabia," T. E. Lawrence developed anincomparable degree of what we now call "culturalawareness" during his time working with Arab tribesand armies, and many of his 27 articles ring as truetoday as they did in his day. A website with the arti-cles can be found at <www.pbs.org/lawrenceofara-bia/revolt/warfare4.html>. A good overview ofLawrence's thinking, including his six fundamentalprinciples of insurgency, can be found in "T. E.

Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent," Army (July2005): 31-37.3. I should note that this has been much less the case

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in Afghanistan where, because the expectations of thepeople were so low and the abhorrence of the Talibanand further civil war was so great, the Afghan peopleremain grateful to Coalition forces and other organiza-tions for all that is done for them. Needless to say, therelative permissiveness of the security situation inAfghanistan has also helped a great deal and made itpossible for nongovernmental organizations to operateon a much wider and freer basis than is possible inIraq. In short, the different context in Afghanistan hasmeant that the half-life of the Army of liberation therehas been considerably longer than that in Iraq.4. In fact, we often contended with what came to beknown as the "Man on the Moon Challenge—i.e., theexpectation of ordinary Iraqis that soldiers from acountry that could put a man on the moon and over-throw Saddam in a matter of weeks should also beable, with considerable ease, to provide each Iraqi ajob, 24-hour electrical service, and so on.5. The military units on the ground in Iraq have gen-erally had considerable capability to carry out recon-struction and nation-building tasks. During its time innorthern Iraq, for example, the 101st AirborneDivision had four engineer battalions (including, for aperiod, even a well-drilling detachment), an engineergroup headquarters (which is designed to carry outassessment, design, contracting, and quality assurancetasks), two civil affairs battalions, nine infantry battal-ions, four artillery battalions (most of which were "outof battery" and performed reconstruction tasks), a siz-able logistical support command (generally about 6battalions, including transportation, fuel storage, sup-ply, maintenance, food service, movement control,warehousing, and even water purification units), a mil-itary police battalion (with attached police and correc-tions training detachments), a signal battalion, an airdefense battalion (which helped train Iraqi forces), afield hospital, a number of contracting officers andofficers authorized to carry large sums of money, anair traffic control element, some nine aviation battal-ions (with approximately 250 helicopters), a numberof chaplain teams, and more than 25 military lawyers(who can be of enormous assistance in resolving ahost of problems when conducting nation-building).Except in the area of aviation assets, the 4th InfantryDivision and the 1st Armored Division, the two othermajor Army units in Iraq in the summer of 2003, hadeven more assets than the 101st.

6. The FY 2005 Defense Budget and SupplementalFunding Measures approved by Congress providedsome $5.2 billion for the Iraqi security force's train,equip, advise, and rebuild effort. Just as significant, itwas appropriated in just three categories—Ministry ofDefense, Ministry of Interior, and Quick ReactionFunds—thereby minimizing substantially the need forreprogramming actions.7. General John R. Galvin, "Uncomfortable Wars:Toward a New Paradigm," Parameters, 16, no. 4(Winter 1986): 6.8. As soon as the "kinetic" part of that operation wascomplete, we moved into the neighborhood withengineers, civil affairs teams, lawyers, officers withmoney, and security elements. We subsequentlyrepaired any damage that might conceivably havebeen caused by the operation, and completelyremoved all traces of the house in which Uday andQusay were located, as the missiles had rendered itstructurally unsound and we didn't want anyreminders left of the two brothers.9. Overtime, and as the effort to train and equip Iraqicombat units gathered momentum, the Multi NationalSecurity Transition Command-Iraq placed greater andgreater emphasis on helping with the development ofthe Ministries of Defense and Interior, especially afterthe mission to advise the ministries' leaders was shift-ed to the command from the embassy's IraqReconstruction Management Office in the fall of 2005.It is now one of the command's top priorities.10. The Army, for example, has incorporated scenar-ios that place a premium on cultural awareness into itsmajor exercises at the National Training Center andJoint Readiness Training Center. It has stressed theimportance of cultural awareness throughout theprocess of preparing units for deployments to Iraq andAfghanistan and in a comprehensive approach adopt-ed by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.As part of this effort, language tools have been devel-oped: e.g., the Rosetta Stone program availablethrough Army Knowledge Online, and language train-ing will he required; e.g., of Command and GeneralStaff College students during their 2d and 3d semes-ters. Doctrinal manuals are being modified to recog-nize the importance of cultural awareness, and instruc-tion in various commissioned and noncommissionedofficer courses has been added as well. The Center forArmy Lessons Learned has published a number of

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documents to assist as well. The U.S. Marine Corps haspursued similar initiatives and is, in fact, partneringwith the Army in the development of a newCounterinsurgency Field Manual.11. David Galula's classic work, CounterinsurgencyWarfare. Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, 'FL:Mailer Publishing, 2005) is particularly instructive' onthis point. See, for example, his discussion on pages88-89.12. As I noted in a previous footnote, preparation ofleaders and units for deployment to Iraq orAfghanistan now typically includes extensive prepara-tion for the kind of "non-kinetic" operations our lead-ers are called on to perform, with the preparation peri-od culminating in a brigade combat team missionrehearsal exercise at either the National TrainingCenter or the Joint Readiness Training Center. At eachCenter, units conduct missions similar to those they'llperform when deployed and do so in an environmentthat includes villages, Iraqi-American role players,"suicide bombers," "insurgents," the need to work withlocal leaders and local security forces, etc. At the nexthigher level, the preparation of division and corpsheadquarters culminates in the conduct of a missionrehearsal exercise conducted jointly by the BattleCommand Training Program and Joint WarfightingCenter. This exercise also strives to replicate-in a com-mand post exercise format driven by a computer sim-ulation-the missions, challenges, and context the unitwill find once deployed.13. A great piece that highlights the work being doneby young leaders in Iraq is Robert Kaplan's "TheFuture of America-in Iraq," latiines.coin, 24 December2005. Another is the video presentation used by ArmyChief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker,"Pentathlete Leader: 1LT Ted Wiley," which recountsLieutenant Wiley's fascinating experiences in the firstStryker unit to operate in Iraq as they fought and con-ducted nation-building operations throughout much ofthe country, often transitioning from one to the othervery rapidly, changing missions and reorganizingwhile on the move, and covering considerable dis-tances in short periods of time.14, In fact, the U.S. Army is currently in the final stagesof an important study of the education and training ofleaders, one objective of which is to identify addition-al programs and initiatives that can help produce thekind of flexible, adaptable leaders who have done