The Gentile-Nagl debate

Lately I have been reading more of Gentile’s writings and pieces he has endorsed. I have become more and more convinced that the debate between him and Nagl has not been framed well and that Gentile’s arguments are much weaker than they are portrayed.

His central debate with Nagl is about the effectiveness of population centric COIN versus enemy centric. His reasoning seems to be that when you kill the enemy, you maintain the initiative. Once you build up enough momentum, you can virtually destroy the enemy so he is no longer effective. He also says here that killing the enemy is very important for soldier morale: “Putting a bullet through the head of an insurgent emplacing an IED indicates fundamental success to the combat soldier.”

Moreover, securing the population is too dangerous without a huge troop commitment. When you shift forces out into isolated combat outposts, they become more vulnerable. The supply route to these outposts also becomes very vulnerable. With the current amount of soldier the US can deploy, we will never be able to effectively secure the population.

Finally, he argues that a population centric approach COIN does not necessarily address the fundamental problems we face. He says: “Arguably, our current operational approach is too little and too late. It does not take into account the reality of conditions on the ground in Baghdad, the fact that there is civil war occurring, and those 25,000 additional combat troops simply are not enough to solve militarily what is essentially a political problem.”

A piece he endorsed written by an Air Force general took the argument further. MGN Dunlap argued that because ground forces sometimes cause a significant amount of collateral damage and Iraqis have an inherent distrust of us, we should have a more hands off approach with our ground forces and rely more on precise airpower. He also argued that human intelligence is not as important as that derived from technical means. To me this argument is akin to saying since 99% of accidents happen on the road we should drive on the sidewalk.

Gentile uses various evidence to support his arguments. He claims that the drop in violence that followed the surge was mostly due to the Sunni Awakening and Sadr’s decision to have a cease fire. He also says that what Petraeus and Odierno implemented was not that new and American forces had been applying sound COIN principles before they took charge.

I have many problems with Gentile’s arguments and many people have pointed out holes in it. The biggest one is that an enemy centric focus does not actually solve the problem and my even create more. David Killcullen’s Accidental Guerilla has an excellent discussion about how people become co-opted into insurgencies. When you commute to the battle and focus on seeking out engagements with the insurgents, then the population will tend to develop a view of you as an aggressor who is not helping them and not effectively dealing with the insurgency. Many people will then join the insurgency for defensive reasons.

The second big flaw with his argument which Thomas Ricks also shares in his new book is he takes too narrow a view of the surge and how it changed things. His critiques are mostly aimed at the tactical and operational levels, but the strategic level is very important to. The strategic level is where the political problems are identified, metrics to read the environment and measure its change are developed, actions are prioritized, and resources expenditure is decided upon. In the case of Iraq, Petraeus strategic assessment team identified Sunni insurgency against the new order, inter-communal conflict, and trans-national terrorism as the three important dynamics. He then developed a strategy that shaped the tactical and operational changes, some of which Odierno had already implemented. Population centric security was just one tactical and operational method to achieve a desired political result. The strategy developed by Petraeus also helped to encourage a Sunni uprising and marginalize Sadr. Thus, the two other factors Gentile mentions in the reduction of violence should not be considered as independent of the Surge strategy.

There are many other flaws I can see but these I think are the most important. One other one that deserves a lot of attention is his argument that killing the enemy leads to good morale. I would think a soldier feels better about what he did if the population cheers him and sings songs about him when he leaves rather than throwing him hateful looks.