The Long War, Counterinsurgency Operations, and the Future of the Armed Forces

The Long War, Counterinsurgency Operations, and the Future of the Armed Forces

Adam L. Silverman PhD[1]

In his 27 November 2009 post, COL (ret) Lang concludes by arguing that if President Obama is going to accede to the wishes of his generals for more troops now and most likely in the future, then the draft should be revived and plans put in place for recruiting a large body of qualified advisors.[2]COL (ret) Lang’s assertions about how to provide future personnel are startling in light of recent reporting that should President Obama, as has been leaked, resource approximately 30,000 more troops for Operation Enduring Freedom there will be almost no reserve of available combat brigades left in case of any needs in the immediate future.[3]As many of the military and civilian analysts and advisors have argued that we are fighting a generationallong warthat is, and will continue to be, a protracted series of conventional and asymmetrical operations often following counterinsurgency principles and doctrine[4], and that the lack of institutional resources at the Department of State, where they have about 6,500 foreign service officers (not quite two brigades) as compared to the Department of Defense, means that these operations will fall disproportionately on US military personnel.And these are not just combat operations or counterinsurgency, it also means that unless the forty year decline in resourcing the State Department is reversed than the brunt of development, stabilization, and reconstruction is going to fall on the US military.

While the discussion of how America reached this point of either institutional over extension (the military) or under capacity (the State Department and other domestic and foreign facing US institutions) is an interesting study in and of itself it does not provide us with a solution or a way out of the resources trap.Rather a better place to focus is on the nature of the US military.When GEN Meyer, in the wake of Vietnam, created the all volunteer force (AVF) it was partially intended to be a political and strategic speedbump.[5]By constraining the military with a limited number of professional soldiers who had joined because they had a vocation or were pursuing an occupation, GEN Meyer hoped to institutionalize an inability for America to engage in protracted military operations.While this was intended to institutionally constrain presidents from entangling America in large scale wars of aggression, as well as force politicians to think long and hard before committing troops to a conflict that could escalate past the AVF’s ability to resource personnel, it seems to have not had this effect.Over the past eight years, even with the need to call up large numbers of the US National Guard and Army Reserve, the debate over the use of the military in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines (there is a branch of OEF in the Philippines that is assisting against the Moros, which is a continuation of the on again/off again US military support against these Islamic islanders that began in 1896 or 1904, depending on who is doing the dating; astoundingly we’ve been assisting with a 104 to 113 year long COINOp against an indigenous population of Muslims who want self rule on the couple of islands where they are a majority), and elsewhere has been perfunctory at best.In fact at the time of the vote over the use of force in Iraq in 2003 there were no more thanninemembers of Congress out of 535 Senators and Representatives that had members of their family in the military or were currently in the Reserves or Guard![6]As a result the debate reportedly took less than ninety minutes.For a representative democracy to have so few of its citizens in the military that less than ten members of Congress are related to anyone currently serving borders on the scandalous.Moreover, it seriously warps the policy debate as so few of our elected officials have a personal stake in using the military.

The real question going forward, though, is how does America extricate itself from this political, policy, and manpower trap.One way, as proposed by COL (ret) Lang is to reinstitute the draft.The problem with this, as evidenced by the draft during Vietnam is that there is always a way for the committed avoider of military service to get out of the draft.In fact some of the biggest supporters of the Vietnam War, as well as using the military to solve every foreign policy issue facing the US all managed to avoid service during Vietnam.Another way is the war tax being proposed by Congressman Obey.His idea would mean that Americans would have to pay up front for the price of continually using the military.The belief behind this initiative is that if everyone had to see the cost, up front, and be handed their portion of the bill in real time, there would be a popular clamor to stop the repeated deployments.The problem here is that there are always tax loop-holes, so many would likely find a way out of paying, just as they find a way out of being drafted.A more robust solution, one that would finally force Americans and America's elected representatives to have a real, substantive, and long overdue discussion and debate regarding whether we are indeed in a multigenerational war and if that conflict is in fact we are facing a true existential threat to America, would be for every American to have to serve in the military for three years.Those that are unable to serve because of a physical impediment, or whose religious beliefs prohibit it, should still be required to serve in a civilian capacity for three years to free others up for their military service.Those who wish to attend one of the military academies or seek an ROTC scholarship would still be able to do so in lieu of their initial three years with the understanding that they would be required to do a longer commitment upon the completion of their bachelor’s degrees and receipt of their commissions.This type of system has several benefits.First it binds all Americans together in the common cause of serving and defending the Republic.By doing so it makes a larger portion of the citizenry available for service in case of emergency and it would serve a restrictive function on our elected officials rushing to throw the military at every problem as they would now have a personal stake, their family members, directly effected by their decisions.This is not something that has happened since World War II when a broad cross section of America volunteered for service.[7]Among the additional benefits should be money for education, scaled so that the longer one stays in beyond the required three year basic commitment the more funding one gets.While the basic three year commitment should provide adequate funding for college, serving beyond the minimum would allow Americans to accrue funding to defray the costs of graduate or professional school.This also has the benefit of providing a more mature and experienced student body at our universities.A final additional benefit of universal service for all Americans is that we can tether our health care funding to this service.One of the benefits of such a requirement would be access to the VA health care system, and while it would have to be expanded this would allow us to get ahead of the problem of health care costs, financing, and delivery as we would eventually have everyone covered either by the VA because of their military service or by Medicare upon their retirement.Finally, outreach and recruiting of what COL (ret) Lang proposed as a civilian advisory force should focus on those civilians deemed to old for initial entry into the military, but with the necessary expertise to positively contribute solutions to America’s domestic and foreign policy concerns.America has reached the point where we can either recognize and live up to the ideals that our rights and liberties are exchanged for duties and responsibilities or we can continue on as we are with an all volunteer force that is a tiny percentage of our population carrying the burdens for the rest of us.

[1]Adam L. Silverman, PhD was the Field Social Scientist and Team Leader for Human Terrain Team Iraq 6 (HTT IZ6) assigned to the 2BCT/1AD from OCT 2007 to OCT 2008. Upon his redeployment to the US he served as the US Army Human Terrain System Strategic Advisor through June 2009.The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the 2BCT/1AD, the US Army Human Terrain System, or the US Army.

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