Chances are you’ll already have seen media coverage of Generation Kill – HBO’s outstanding new mini-series based on Evan Wright’s book on his time as an embedded correspondent with a US Marine Corps reconnaissance battalion as they invaded Iraq. The series comes from David Simon and Ed Burns, the creators of The Wire (here’s an audio interview with Ed Burns, Wire fans). Lest you haven’t already sampled the extensive selection of clips on YouTube, here’s a small sample to whet your appetite:
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLAIKjT7y8&feature=channel]
Book and series alike both give close-up perspectives on the failures of counter-insurgency doctrine that typified the early Iraq campaign. Even then, it’s clear that the more thoughtful marines portrayed in Wright’s account become steadily more aware of the hearts and minds dimensions of their campaign – especially in the case of Lt. Nathaniel Fick, who led the platoon in which Wright was embedded. Fick has since left the USMC for the Center for a New American Security, where he’s now co-authoring research with long-time 4th Generation Warfare expert John Nagl. (CNAS is becoming quite the hotspot for counter-insurgency thinking – David Kilcullen‘s a Senior Fellow there too.)
Fick and Nagl have a joint piece in the new edition of Foreign Policy, which is emphatically worth a read. They offer five paradoxes of successful counter-insurgency – namely that some of the best weapons don’t shoot (electricity, jobs, water, education and roads are all singled out); that sometimes the more you protect your force, the less secure you’ll be; that the hosts doing something tolerably is often better than foreigners doing it well; that sometimes the more force is used, the less effective it is; and that sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.
All of which leaves me with the question: how is it that as the US, the UK and other Coalition countries have been steadily learning these tough lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel’s tactics in Gaza and the West Bank show that it hasn’t learned a damn thing?
My own hunch is that much of the answer is to do with the fact that while the US and UK are professional armies basedaround a backbone of experienced NCOs, the bulk of IDF on the other hand is composed of conscripts and reservists – without the NCO backbone. In the words of a former US defense liaison officer who worked with the IDF,
There are no career ground force sergeants except as technicians. Unless the system has changed very recently, the IDF ground forces typically do not have career NCOs in the LINE of the combat arms. This is a structural tradition that derives originally from the Russian tsar’s army and which came to Palestine through Russian and Polish Zionist immigrants. Then this passed through the Haganah into the IDF.
The IDF “line” conscripts what amount to yearly classes of recruits and selects from them more promising soldiers who are given NCO level command responsibilities as; infantry leaders, tank commanders, artillery gun captains, etc. The IDF does have career NCOs but they are typically found in jobs of a more technical nature rather than junior combat command at the squad or platoon (section) level.
As a result, junior officers (company grade) are required to perform duties that in more traditionally organized armies would be performed by sergeants. Leading a small combat or reconnaissance patrol would be an example. As a result, a non-reserve infantry or tank company in the field consists of people who are all about the same age (19-22) and commanded by a captain in his mid 20s.
What is missing in this scene is the voice of grown up counsel provided by sergeants in their 30s and 40s telling these young people what it is that would be wise to do based on real experience and mature judgment. In contrast a 22 year old American platoon leader would have a mature platoon sergeant as his assistant and counselor.
As a result of this system of manning, the IDF’s ground force is more unpredictable and volatile at the tactical (company) level than might be the case otherwise. The national government has a hard time knowing whether or not specific policies will be followed in the field. For example, the Israeli government’s policy in the present action in the Gaza Strip has been to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Based on personal experience of the behavior of IDF conscripts toward Palestinian civilians, I would say that the Israeli government has little control over what individual groups of these young Israeli soldiers may do in incidents like the one yesterday in which mortar fire was directed toward UN controlled school buildings.
