Counterinsurgency/COIN Literature & Discussion (merged)

[tomahawk6]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502586_pf.html

The story of the success that the 3ACR has had in Tel Afar. Commanded by HR McMaster, hero of DS where as a Captain commanding a troop took on a republican guard unit much greater than his own winning a Silver Star. One of the Army's up and coming commanders.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

"One out of every 10 soldiers received a three-week course in conversational Arabic, so that each small unit would have someone capable of basic exchanges with Iraqis."

do we do this? and if not why not.

 

[Andy]

"One out of every 10 soldiers received a three-week course in conversational Arabic, so that each small unit would have someone capable of basic exchanges with Iraqis."

do we do this? and if not why not.

I know that during pre-deployment training there are classes on basic words and phrases but it is not extensive enough to actually remember anything usefull.  It is definitely not done enough and your best bet is to learn it on your own before going.  I'm pretty sure it is not a concern to CO's of unit's because in any situation they should have a local translator attached to units.  The only problem is how can you trust a local in this type of a situation?  There is only one thing you need to know to speak in any language and that is the sound of your weapon coching and a barrel pointed in there face.  They will get the hint..

 

[MoRat]

I cannot for the life of me understand why we do not put more emphasis on language training. Units know years in advance when they will be deploying. Rather than letting the days slide by, why not take motivated volunteers and provide them with long-term, professional language training? It's not like the CF has no experience with teaching its' members how to learn another language.
There is no doubt that our interpreters in Kandahar may be of questionable loyalty. Since we have the means to address this problem ourselves, I find it baffling that we do not.

 

[George Wallace]

Do you work for a living?  Do you expect the Forces now to run Night School for its' Troops?  Just a couple of questions.

Some times I find it baffling at the conceptions that some people have about the CF.  Like the CF doesn't do anything all day?  I guess they think the same of Firemen, Paramedics, and police in the same way.  If they can't see you actively doing something, like fighting a fire, chasing robbers or shovelling snow in Toronto, then you don't do anything all day. 

 

[Glorified Ape]

There is only one thing you need to know to speak in any language and that is the sound of your weapon coching and a barrel pointed in there face.  They will get the hint..

I would imagine that that approach is somewhat self-defeating in the long run, since counter insurgency (against a semi-Maoist insurgency anyways) often relies as much on the political socialization of the populous as much as military force.

 

[KevinB]

I would imagine that that approach is somewhat self-defeating in the long run, since counter insurgency (against a semi-Maoist insurgency anyways) often relies as much on the political socialization of the populous as much as military force.

:

Everyone speaking English with a gun in their Face....  ;D

We (well I am out - but I mean the CF) are not Mother Teressa - if an Infanteer needs to make a point very clearly to a Afghan on a patrol its usually - a stop RFN or I kill you issue.

I know from soldiering with Andy in Afghan (and he has two tours here) that he is not a loose thread fred type -- the poitn as George Wallace made already is WHEN do you find time to do the language training?
The pre-dep trg is already jam filled and if the unit CO has not alreayd hedged his bet he is deployign odds are the guys will be working weekends during the pre-dep trg if they have not managed to squeeze some in prior to the Warning Order for the tour (out of the Units normal budget)

I'd love to see more language training - but until there are more bodies - its not feasible.

 

[Glorified Ape]

:

Everyone speaking English with a gun in their Face....  ;D

We (well I am out - but I mean the CF) are not Mother Teressa - if an Infanteer needs to make a point very clearly to a Afghan on a patrol its usually - a stop RFN or I kill you issue.

I'm not saying that the "gun in the face" approach is wrong or that it isn't often necessary, just that it probably wouldn't serve too well as the sole means of communication between the troops and the populous during a counter-insurgency campaign.

I know from soldiering with Andy in Afghan (and he has two tours here) that he is not a loose thread fred type -- the poitn as George Wallace made already is WHEN do you find time to do the language training?

The pre-dep trg is already jam filled and if the unit CO has not alreayd hedged his bet he is deployign odds are the guys will be working weekends during the pre-dep trg if they have not managed to squeeze some in prior to the Warning Order for the tour (out of the Units normal budget)

I'd love to see more language training - but until there are more bodies - its not feasible.

Hey, I don't disagree with you, especially considering I have no tour experience by which I would know the time/personnel constraint issues, let alone funding issues, etc. I'm not saying we could pull off the kind of language training that the yanks have, my only point was that a counter-insurgency probably won't do well if brute force (or the threat thereof) is the only tool/communication device. That's not to say it's not an important tool, but I'd wager it needs to be offset with gaining the cooperation of the populous - something that requires communication resources other than the muzzle of a C7/8.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Having soldiers who can interact with the locals (civilians and officials) without needing interpreters are extremely valuable. Take it for what it is worth, but Kaplan's book Imperial Grunts has language ability as a major criticism of US forces today.  Apparently, the US military will be devoting more time to language training.

I'm no language training expert, but perhaps we could invest some foreign language training into a cross-section of soldiers before they start TMST.  Another option would be to take a three week chunk of TMST and send this cross-section (like 1 man per Tp/Pl) on an intensive course at the expense of other TMST.  We do it for other things.  It is hard, however, to decide what to miss.  I guess its all about priorities.  Perhaps we could take advantage of our veteran soldiers with recent tours under their belts.  With a six week block, the "platoon linguist" could take a week of ranges, a week of first aid, a week of mines/IED/threat training and three weeks of intensive language training.

If we could look a little farther ahead with soldier's tempo (what missions they will go on), we could perhaps devote some resources (especially time) to developing these languages in our soldiers. 

2B

 

[Journeyman]

Perhaps we could take advantage of our veteran soldiers with recent tours under their belts. 

While there may be an issue of qualified local instruction (you could learn Somali in Ottawa's Rideau Centre, but are there many Pashtu speakers in the West Edmonton Mall?)....another factor would be ability to learn another language - - some people are quite simply "tone deaf" when it comes to other languages. These would have to be identified before investing time/effort into supplemental language courses...again, IF you could find the training time in the first place.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Quite true.  There is an Afghan-Canadian community, however, that could be engaged for instructors (as is done for the language training in TMST).  The ability part would require some testing and assessment I suppose.  I figure that time will be the big stumbling block.

"Ask me for anything but time"

 

[pbi]

The message I got, very loud and clear, from US inf tactical leaders (and I'm talking about squad/pl/coy level) in Afghanistan in 2004/05 was that they desperately needed to be able to communicate effectively with the local people in order to be aware of what was going on in their AO, to build trust, and maybe in the long run save lives. They recommended having way more translators (right down to squad, since squads often operated autonomously), and getting useful language training before deployment.

If time is the enemy, then maybe the answer is that we have to make a draconian decision: we will designate certain people to start language training as soon as we get the WngO for a deployment. (Well, actually, probably before that, unless the timeliness of WngOs has improved...) As was suggested, these could be experienced soldiers who don't need quite as much refresher training. Their job will not be as  a driver gunner, or sig op, or cook: it will be as a soldier-translator. I would argue that in a place like Afghanistan that function could be equally as important (if not moreso...) than those listed.

We could also consider (as the US Marine Corps is now initiating) standing language training as part of training during one's career, based on what languages are most likely to be used on ops. (At Quantico, the USMC has begun with Arabic, and will add Chinese).

Cheers

 

[Journeyman]

We could also consider (as the US Marine Corps is now initiating) standing language training as part of training during one's career, based on what languages are most likely to be used on ops. (At Quantico, the USMC has begun with Arabic, and will add Chinese).

The range of languages need not be too broad, given our deployment track record. We seldom have one-off deployments, unless the withdrawal is based more on political expediency than the on-ground situation (Somalia comes to mind). The Canadian Army went into Cyprus in 1964 with a 4-month mandate; there's still a Canadian flag flying out in front of UNFICYP HQ! CF troops could have gotten much use out of Greek or Turkish language skills. I suspect any language training relevant to Afghanistan will have utility for several more years - - if only because it's not Iraq.

 

[Journeyman]

...and getting useful language training before deployment.

Further, see  http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/pop/articles/16fort.html

10th Mountain Division, primarily 3rd Bde, deploys to A'stan next month. The Div commander, "Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, and other officers spoke of the heightened language and cultural training they had instituted to meet the new challenges in a conflict against militant Islam."

Some soldiers had been assigned " an intensive course in Pashto, the major language in Afghanistan, as their sole duty for 47 weeks."

 

[tomahawk6]

Perhaps creating a program within the Pres where soldiers would take language training and once qualified would volunteer for deployment with the regular force, would be one way to tackle this problem.

 

[KevinB]

T6 - excellent idea...

 

[Kirkhill]

I find myself a bit confused.

On other threads we have people like GO saying that a primary reason for people not extending past their BE, especially in the Combat Arms, is that they are bored.  That suggests that they have time on their hands.  At the same time we have people here arguing that there is too little time after the WngO has been issued to supply language training.

Surely the secret is not to wait until the WngO is issued to start training troops in other languages.  Especially with folks like Generals Hillier and Leslie talking about being engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years or so, and the US talking about "The Long War" perhaps it might serve to start including language training into the standing syllabus.  EG rather than having troops sitting around at Borden after BMQs (a problem as I understand from other posts) why not eat up some of that "slack" time in language classes -- always assuming instructors can be found. 

A side benefit is that the troops might learn more than "Halt", "2 Beers", and "Where's the washroom?" or suitable military equivalents.

Of course, maybe there isn't all this free time available.  Maybe the boredom referred to is not due to too much time being available but due to the training being uninteresting.

 

[KevinB]

Kirkhill - its both.

The units have zero budget for trg until a WO is generated these days -- then its all a flurry of activity....

Maybe IF the army managed itself better - it would work -- but despite the fact a unit be able it is slated to go they cant start training (at leats funded trg) until the WO is dropped to them...

Several of the Sr Officers can expound better on this than I.

 

[Kirkhill]

Kevin:

I guess the good news is that your observation suggests that given a cadre of good professional leaders, it is possible to field a unit for Afghanistan by putting new recruits through a few months of basic individual training, followed by another few months of collective training and they are good to go for six months in Afghanistan.  ( I know it ain't that simple - see comments on SITREP Militia Units).  It does make for some interesting thoughts about shorter contracts, recruits for combat arms, building leadership skills in long service soldiers and preserving skills and capabilities by transferring "seasoned" short-service soldiers into the reserves.

OT - apologies - just that everything seems to relate to everything else.

As to the no training until WngO  ??? :

 

[KevinB]

Kirkhill -- IMHO  ;D  It would/shoudl take a year for a troop to join and go over.

I am no longer current with the training system - but Basic/GMT & Battleschool is / was around 6 months - then add in getting to a Bn and doing work up trg and the rest.


Obviously with a cadre of exceedingly high instructors and above avg candidates this can/could be shortened - but the fact of the matter is the CF no longer has this cadre (outside DHTC for weapons etc)...