Page 209 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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Iraq and the security challenges that the United States faces today and in the future is now.
Iraq in 2008 is not the world of 1964.
36
One of the principles authors of FM 3-24 recently noted that he did not think that the FM
was heavily reliant on the framework of protracted people’s war and the writings of Galula
and thompson. Yet a close reading of the FM shows that it is heavily dominated by the no-
37
tion of countering an insurgency by using the methods established in the early 1960s. There
is the operating assumption in the manual that counterinsurgency wars are radical departures
from more traditional forms of warfare. The introductory quote for the first chapter to FM
38
3-24 states that counterinsurgency war is “the graduate level of war;” implying that not only
is it much more different than conventional war but it is more difficult too. The majority of
highlighted quotes and historical “vignettes” in the manual are drawn from Thompson, Ga-
lula, and other sources that favor the protracted people’s war approach. FM 3-24 sees as
39
a fundamental principle in any counterinsurgency that the focus of all operations must end
up with the people; that they are to be protected and secured so that the insurgents can thus
be separated; the people are decisive. and the manual’s chapter on conducting counter-
40
insurgency operations is premised on the same methods accepted by writers like Galula and
Thompson of clearing, holding, and building.
41
There are theoretically and historically other approaches to counterinsurgency than the
protracted people’s war approach as replicated in FM 3-24. The manual does acknowledge
other “limited options” and then provides a one paragraph, six line explanation out of over
250 pages to the entire manual. Yet within that paragraph of “limited options” to counter-
insurgency could have been a doubling of the size of the manual or at least cutting back on
the protracted people’s war approach to offer other options to contemporary practitioners
of counterinsurgency. Sometimes, the best approach to dealing with a problem of insur-
42
gency is not necessarily a focus on the people, per say, but on the insurgent enemy. This does
not mean, as many uniformed critics like to assert, that the enemy-centric approach means
scorching the earth of a country by killing innocent civilians to get at the insurgents. Yet that
is the criticism often thrown at suggestions to look at problems of insurgencies in ways other
than protraction and focusing on populations demanding substantial involvement of Ameri-

36 For an argument that posits that Iraq does not fit into the category of traditional insurgencies seen during the
Cold War see Ian Beckett, “Insurgency in Iraq: A Historical Perspective,” Strategic Studies Institute, January
2005.
37 Personal email from Primary author of FM 3-24 to me, 23 June 2008.
38 FM 3-24, see especially the 9 “Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations” page 1-26-1-28.
39 Ibid., For specific historical vignettes (short historical stories) that come from the counter-maoist approach
see especially: Vietnam CORDS, 3-18; Vietnam CAPS, 5-25; Malaya, 6-21; Mao’s success in China, 5-7 (or
how not to do counter-maoist on the part of the Nationalist Chinese forces). For specific historical quotes
drawing on the French Rev War School see: Lead quote to chapter 2, David Galula, 2-1; Lead quote to chap-
ter 3, General Creighton W Abrams, JR (Abrams is seen by many Coin proponents in the American Army
as applying once he took command from Westmoreland a classic counter-maoist approach along the lines of
Galula and Thompson); Lead quote to Chapter 5, Sir Robert Thompson, 5-1, 5-26.
40 Ibid., 1-1.
41 Ibid., 5-18-5-24
42 Ibid., 5-25