For all of you budding David Hackworths and Massus out there, here’s a round up of some of the latest on Iraq, counterinsurgency, and recent events.

War Nerd notes the obvious: Hezbollah’s winning and it spells big trouble for western style militaries, including America’s. His column is unique, not least, because it looks to the broader strategic problem–Israel’s failure to seize the initiative and also its failure to obtain useful intelligence–but it also looks to tactical issues, such as Hezbollah’s fire discipline, its use of advanced dual warhead shaped charges, and other very tactical observations.

Terence Daly reminds us that killing alone won’t win the Iraq war. I know, I know, PC nonsense spouted by the treacherous MSM. Well, unlike most of the Westmoreland reincarnations in the right wing media, he actually participated in a successful part of America’s Vietnam strategy, its village pacification programs. The misnomer that conventional military strategies devised by conventionally trained generals can win wars such as the Iraq war is a false and comforting delusion, often told in the nature of an excuse by generals who lost wars that they had more than ample resources to win. In fact, this attritional approach has lost numerous counterinsurgencies historically, both politically and on the battlefield. The most obvious such failure is the failure of the find-em-and-kill-them strategy in the first half of America’s intervention in Vietnam.

As recognized belatedly in the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual, the key to strategic victory in a counterinsurgency is to win over the host population’s uncommitted populace, both with carrots and sticks. I disagree, however, with Daly’s proposal for a specialized, paramilitarized civilian force akin to the French’s SAS, which was employed to great effect in Algeria. First, such a force would likely have to be custom-designed for any given theater of operations, because of the unique cultural and language requirements for working with the local populace. Second, the alleged need for such a force underestimates the degree to which adequately-trained and augmented conventional forces can get the mission accomplished. In other words, it is better to invest in a few thousand linguists and guys that pick up a National Geographic once in a while than to create a whole new paramilitary force to (further) muck up unity of command. And, three, although such quasi-civilian forces are important in any such campaign, they won’t work in the US. They will demand too much protection in dangerous locales, and the mission conflicts with basic American values and habits, not least our short attention span. In short, we’re not good imperialists and likely never will be. Better for the Army to train to pull its punches and gather local intelligence than to build up a brand new force that would have little role outside of the war in Iraq, which will be winding down soon. . . . win, lose, or draw. Incidentally, the winning essay in this month’s Military Review competition agrees with my skepticism about establishing the equivalent of a colonial corps.

Speaking of “hearts and minds,” the President’s own manifest rhetorical failures–not just gaffes, but genuine failures of communication–have now progressed to the point that all of his remaining conservative supporters are starting to jump ship, recognize the debacle that is Iraq, and call for a real change in strategy, coupled with an accounting by the administration. This trend is discussed both in this Washington Post article but also this John Fund editorial.

As an aside, I don’t think the book has yet been written on the differences in Army and Marine strategies in Iraq. On the whole, the Marines have appeared more flexible and more comfortable with the essential mission. This institutional comfort stems at least in part from the widely distributed and venerable Small Wars Manual. The Army, in contrast, has seemingly avoided revisiting and maintaining the lessons of its own counterinsurgency experience, whether from the Indian Wars or Vietnam. Instead, its establishment seems to have always lobbied for operations that involve the kind of warfare it is best at: large scale conventional wars. The most infamous example of this was the foot-dragging in deploying Apaches in the limited war in Kosovo. But this failure of institutional imagination is also apparent in the failure of the Army–whether in CFLCC, CENTCOM, or Tommy Franks’ staff–to prepare adequately for Phase IV of the Iraq War.

The armor-heavy US Army, which reached its most spectacular successes in World War II and the First Gulf War, should ask itself whether those kinds of wars are likely to be repeated. Or, if they are, whether they too may be coupled with post-war challenges of insurgency. The infantry culture of the Marines runs deep, from the chevron of any Lance Corporal to the six months spent at an infantry officers course for all of its officers, even support personnel. Perhaps, for this reason, America will find in the decades to come that preeminent infantry mode of combat, counterinsurgency operations will be dominated by the preeminent infantry force, the United States Marine Corps