[HN Gopher] When You're Outnumbered: Lessons from Two British Ma...
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When You're Outnumbered: Lessons from Two British Masters of
Irregular Warfare
Author : magda_wang
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-01-01 07:56 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (warontherocks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (warontherocks.com)
| BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote:
| The Pathans managed to boot out the Brits with bloody noses
| whenever they invaded Afghanistan. In between, Pathan tribes on
| the then India side of the Durand Line kept the Brits out of
| their lands except for punitive expeditions. The Brits solved the
| problem of depredations against ruled populations by garrisoning
| forts guarding against tribe X with recruits from tribe Y. In
| fact there was a dozen or so tribes. This policy also provided
| gainful employment for young men who otherwise would have
| resorted to brigandage against agricultural populations under the
| Raj.
| doggo1233 wrote:
| "Staff with indigenous forces with US NCO/O's from conventional
| (not SOF) forces..." is a great idea on paper.
|
| When was this last tried? The SFAB.
|
| As someone who helped train the SFAB, which is basically what the
| author is cribbing the idea from, it was a joke in application
| and reeked of the hot idea from whatever O6 was gunning for O7.
|
| Of 8-9 SFAB companies supposed to do this out in the bush in AFG
| with local forces, only 1 ended up doing it. This was an Army-
| wide initiative mind you that dragged in multiple other units to
| help train, changed deployment schedules, changed funding, and so
| on.
|
| The institutional willpower to put the 5-10 years of culture
| change behind conventional army who just wants to shoot artillery
| just isn't there at the moment.
|
| And perhaps the regular army should do just that and stay good at
| it. Past efforts at conventional -> SFAB transition efforts, i.e.
| "everyone deploys as the infantry" rotted the skill sets of the
| NCO corps in high skill branches like artillery.
|
| Military thinkers keep advocating for conventional army to be
| anything and everything, and end up just reinventing SF units and
| jobs the state department needs to be doing. Then, those same
| thinkers get confused why gunnery certifications get failed en
| masse by line units who have to train back and forth across these
| conflicting priorities.
| skrebbel wrote:
| San Francisco Area Bay?
|
| EDIT: less cynical, i guess my point is that your comment is so
| full of jargon that it's near impossible to follow for me, and
| likely many other readers. In fact I googled SFAB but the
| wikipedia article doesn't really tell me what it is either
| (other than "a group of soldiers doing soldiery stuff")
| EL_Loco wrote:
| I don't understand, this is one of the main jobs of the U.S.
| Army's Special Forces (also known as Green Berets). Their whole
| thing is learning how to train and fight alongside indigenous
| forces. The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was just that, where
| literally a handful of SF operators joined the Northern Alliance
| and helped them capture several cities from the Taliban (in the
| process becoming the first US soldiers to do battle on horseback
| since 1942)
| PaulAJ wrote:
| Fascinating though this is, the negative long term impact of
| these guys tends to be much greater than their positive short-
| term impact.
|
| You go in, you train a bunch of locals as guerrillas, you achieve
| the objective, and then you get out, leaving the local guerrillas
| behind.
|
| These guys now have the knowledge, experience and organisation to
| make the place ungovernable. At least some of them will proceed
| to do so; either they will form a resistance movement to whoever
| is in charge and become a proxy force for some other power, or
| they will simply replace politics with profit and convert to
| organised crime. Either way, the new government is faced with an
| ungovernable mess.
|
| Afganistan is probably the best example. It was never easy to
| govern, but after the US trained a guerilla resistance to the
| Soviet invasion it became impossible. Most of the Islamic
| fundamentalism that the USA is fighting today can be traced back
| to that one event.
| choeger wrote:
| This does happen but is not necessary. Cases in point: Norway,
| France, Eastern Europe, Germany after WW2. The crucial
| difference seems to be that the winner must immediately invest
| in nation building or the defeated must be crushed.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Yea, firing the Iraqi Army after the 03 invasion was a small
| whoopsie.
| specialist wrote:
| Not guarding the border was another facepalm slap.
|
| Even supporters of Bush's Folly have to admit Rumsfield and
| crew biffed the execution.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Cynically put, the impending Cold War gave more of an
| impetus for nation building mid-century than existed by the
| turn-of-the-century.
|
| Hitler in his bunker doesn't seem so crazy if he'd had
| cause (such as foreign intelligence reports, or incidents
| of separate negotiations?) to believe the Allies would have
| fallen out much sooner than they actually did, and of
| course someone in his position might've believed that Nazi
| Germany had been worth more as a wholesale bargain, than
| (as actually happened) picked up individual by individual
| at retail.
|
| As to commitment to nation building, the (premature?) end
| of it in the former CSA came relatively rapidly:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877
| barry-cotter wrote:
| You are far too kind to the US military. Afghanistan was too
| tough a nut for the British long before the Americans showed
| up. Pastoralist herders with a country that's mostly mountain
| is practically perfect for making ungovernable people. See the
| Caucasus, Balkans and upland Indochina for further examples.
| All the more so when they were swimming with guns already.
| specialist wrote:
| Not being a smart ass:
|
| Ditto Switzerland?
|
| IIRC, Hitler didn't invade for similar reasons. A well armed
| citizenry. (And a convenient fence for all the spoils of
| war.)
|
| Historically, was Switzerland it's own thing? Did Napoleon,
| the Hapsburgs, misc Papacies, Franks and Normans, etc, march
| _around_ those mountains?
| iguy wrote:
| Would be interesting to know more, but as far as I know
| Switzerland (or the area) was never especially like this. I
| mean it was always mountainous, obviously, but the people
| were not so different from their neighbors. Cheese-makers
| who worried about having enough hay for the winter, not
| cattle-rustlers.
|
| The obvious west-european example would be Scotland. And
| the "solution" was more or less to deport the people to
| Ireland & replace them with sheep.
| Wildgoose wrote:
| I think it was the people of the ungovernable borderlands
| between England and Scotland (both sides) that ended up
| being deported to Northern Ireland, (and of course the
| Scots originally came from Northern Ireland anyway).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debatable_Lands
| vondur wrote:
| The Hapsburgs indeed tried to take over Switzerland. It
| didn't go well. The Holy Roman Empire copied the tactics of
| the Swiss and incorporated it into the Landsknechts of
| Germany.
| adamjb wrote:
| Napoleonic forces invaded Switzerland and established a
| client state. Napoleon and 40,000 men quite famously
| crossed the Alps from Switzerland (base camp at Martigny)
| as part of the Italian campaign in 1800, as depicted in [0]
| and [1].
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Crossing_the_Alps
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaparte_Crossing_the_Alps
| conistonwater wrote:
| > _Most of the Islamic fundamentalism that the USA is fighting
| today can be traced back to that one event._
|
| This is just plain false. A nice book that I can recommend on
| the actual history of it is _Ghost Wars_ by Steve Coll.
| pretendscholar wrote:
| It is so obnoxious to tell someone that they should read an
| entire book to know what is wrong with a single statement. At
| least throw a couple points out from the book.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Assume that most of us haven't read that book, or even if we
| have that we don't recall it perfectly. What specific
| information in it would lead us to agree with the blanket
| statement "this is just plain false"?
| js2 wrote:
| You can start with the US and Britain intervening in Iran
| in the the late 1940s to protect oil interests and work
| your way forward from there. You could arguably go back to
| post-WWI with Britain, France and Russia arguing over the
| remains of the Ottoman empire (Sykes-Picot Agreement). The
| last century has been one interference after the next by
| Western powers and Russia in the Middle East:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
|
| So to say that "most of the Islamic fundamentalism that the
| USA is fighting today can be traced back to that one event"
| (the US training the Mujahideen) ignores many significant
| events over the past hundred years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_conflicts_in_t
| h...
|
| At best, it's an overly broad claim.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >The last century has been one interference after the
| next by Western powers and Russia in the Middle East
|
| The last two centuries, the interference was so common in
| the 19th century it inspired the name "The Great Game."
| js2 wrote:
| Thank you for the reference. I have some reading to do.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
| kyboren wrote:
| I can highly recommend Alexander Burnes' non-fiction
| _Travels into Bokhara_ and Rudyard Kipling 's fictional
| _Kim_ , which in fact coined the term "The Great Game".
| emayljames wrote:
| It is not plain false then, it is much worse; not just that
| folly but many.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| >Afganistan is probably the best example. It was never easy to
| govern, but after the US trained a guerilla resistance to the
| Soviet invasion it became impossible. Most of the Islamic
| fundamentalism that the USA is fighting today can be traced
| back to that one event.
|
| I disagree, but with some context. If you just go back to the
| cold war, you would be correct, but in a longer time-frame
| context, I would posit instead it was mostly at the British
| backing of the Saud's that created the later environment
| exploited in the 80s and then again later. I recently read a
| book, sorry I can't remember the name right now, written by an
| AQ guy turned intel-asset who actually spent time inside the
| Afghan camps. He mentioned enough times for it to stick in my
| mind how the funding came from SA, and how the more powerful
| people in the groups (trainers, etc) were either from SA or
| Wahhabists. That sent me on a journey of reading up on SA that
| left me really feeling a lot of it was due to Britain wanting
| to maintain the tendrils of Empire, not taking into account the
| possibility of blowback later, or rather, finding it an
| acceptable price to pay.
|
| Mark Curtis wrote a book that I found most illuminating on the
| subject, "Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical
| Islam":
|
| "As Britain withdrew its military forces from the Middle East
| in the late 1960s, Islamist forces such as the Saudi regime
| and, once again, the Muslim Brotherhood, were often seen as
| proxies to maintain British interests in the region, to
| continue to destabilise communist or nationalist regimes or as
| 'muscle' to bolster pro-British, right-wing governments. By the
| 1970s, Arab nationalism had been virtually defeated as a
| political force, partly thanks to Anglo-American opposition; it
| was largely replaced by the rising force of radical Islam,
| which London again often saw as a handy weapon to counter the
| remnants of secular nationalism and communism in key states
| such as Egypt and Jordan."..." Britain continued to see some of
| these groups as useful, principally as proxy guerilla forces in
| places as diverse as Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Libya;
| there,they were used either to help break up the Soviet Union
| and secure major oil interests or to fight nationalist
| regimes," ... "Whitehall not only tolerated but encouraged the
| development of 'Londonistan'-the capital acting as a base and
| organising centre for numerous jihadist groups -even as this
| provided a de facto 'green light'to that terrorism.I suggest
| that some elements, at least, in the British establishment may
| have allowed some Islamist groups to operate from London not
| only because they provided information to the security services
| but also because they were seen as useful to British foreign
| policy, notably in maintaining a politically divided Middle
| East -a long-standing goal of imperial and postwar planners
| -and as a lever to influence foreign governments' policies."...
| "Churchill later wrote that 'my admiration for him [Ibn Saud]
| was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us'"
|
| Yes, as another commenter said, I can also recommend Ghost Wars
| as one of my favorite books on Afghanistan, and Steve Colls
| more recent work Directorate S is also extremely well written
| in the same vein.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| As such other wonderful outposts of peace as northern
| ireland, cyprus, israel, etc. show, back when it was
| Britannia who ruled the waves, they were fond of playing
| "let's you and him fight". To my eyes, the long-term
| drawbacks of these initially-attractive conflicts probably
| support the ancestor's thesis.
|
| (any oceanic power will likely find making a mess of
| potential eurasian overland trade routes to be a feature, not
| a bug.)
| jcaldas wrote:
| Chechnya after the 1994-1996 war is also an excellent example.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Indeed: Kadyrov (the current Marcher Lord) ought to know a
| thing or two, having been supported by both anti-Kremlin and
| pro-Kremlin regimes at varying times.
| varjag wrote:
| It's a delusion of grandeur to think that Islamic
| fundamentalism owes its existence to a transient American
| action.
|
| American exceptionalism but from the Left.
| ageofwant wrote:
| Perhaps a better example would be America's operation TPAJAX,
| that removed Iran's democracy and delivered its modern day
| Islamic theocracy. America certainly did not invent Islamic
| fundamentalism, but it had no issue using it to further its
| own cause.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Huh? This is about military training, equipment, and
| logistics, not religion.
| baxtr wrote:
| These things sound like catalysts, but not as the
| fundamental reasons things were happening. Just look at
| history to see that violence was there before training,
| equipment and logistics were available.
| nerdponx wrote:
| And the post clearly says that:
|
| _Afganistan is probably the best example. It was never
| easy to govern, but after the US trained a guerilla
| resistance to the Soviet invasion it became impossible._
| varjag wrote:
| _Most of the Islamic fundamentalism that the USA is
| fighting today can be traced back to that one event._
| danielheath wrote:
| Fighting being the relevant word. If they hadn't been
| armed and trained, the fight would have been over before
| it began.
| varjag wrote:
| It's hilarious how you can simultaneously make 10 years
| of Afghan and Soviet fighting a secondary act in this
| supposedly American performance. Just proves my point.
| callmeal wrote:
| >It's hilarious how you can simultaneously make 10 years
| of Afghan and Soviet fighting a secondary act in this
| supposedly American performance. Just proves my point.
|
| You're making his by ignoring the fact that the Afghans
| were trained and armed by US to fight the Soviets. That
| training remains, just who they're fighting has changed.
| varjag wrote:
| The vast majority of Mujahedeen never underwent US
| training. Most of their small arms (those that didn't
| originally float in the always militant tribes) were
| provided by Pakistan and China.
|
| Also, becoming a half competent combatant is not like
| getting a PhD, more a function of you surviving your
| first few encounters.
|
| The world does not revolve around America, people were
| able to fight and kill each other well before the CIA was
| formed.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Is all the combat training the US military gives its own
| grunts and leaders not effective at making the US
| military more formidable?
|
| Didn't these mujahadeen stick around to train the next
| generation of soldiers? Aren't there consistent conflict
| in the Middle East to harden that kind of training (eg
| Chechnya)? Aren't there mercenary opportunities to deploy
| and evolve that training?
|
| Whether they would have developed it on their own is
| unclear but the US didn't develop that knowledge on their
| own either, instead synthesizing it from experience of
| Allies during WWII and likely observing other
| insurgencies and criminal enterprises they helped back.
|
| To me the playbook is the same "drug" but way more potent
| and mass produced and perhaps the first to market in this
| distributable form.
| varjag wrote:
| Mujahideen force was never near the level of the U.S.
| military in basic training, and they suffered heavy
| losses even against the conscript Soviet army. Still that
| gets you rather far if you are motivated and fighting a
| war of ambushes on home turf.
|
| If the US training was all it is hyped to be, surely the
| US-trained ANA could have rooted the Taliban by now, even
| without American help.
| [deleted]
| claudiawerner wrote:
| It's a delusion of Western blamelessness to think that any
| supposed relationship between the _actions_ of Islamic
| fundamentalists, their strategies and growth, implies that
| "Islamic fundamentalism owes its existence to a transient
| American action".
|
| Islamic fundamentalism was around before American involvement
| and it'll be around after. Nobody is claiming otherwise.
| varjag wrote:
| The origin of Afghan resistance was Soviet invasion. It was
| the 120,000 troops of Soviet mechanised infantry over 10
| years that made Mujahedeen who they are, not a dozen CIA
| instructors showing them jumping jacks in Pakistan.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| MANPADs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger#Soviet_War_i
| n_A...
| varjag wrote:
| MANPADs were not delivered until 1986: by that time my
| dad already completed two 18-month rotations to Herat.
|
| Anyway MANPAD handling skills are irrelevant to what we
| discuss here.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Not so irrelevant, because at USD 40k per, they were a
| bit more than teaching jumping jacks. I mentioned them
| specifically because they seem to have been the least-
| deniable part of the package.
|
| The author of the lines <<Gory streliaiut, Stinger
| vzletaet / Esli narvat'sia, to parni vtoroi raz umrut>>
| also seems to have accorded them more respect than you
| do...
|
| I've heard the Chechens were able to manufacture their
| own small arms. Afghanis certainly had that capability;
| did they have it at the scale provided? Would they have
| been able to source their own MANPADs?
| varjag wrote:
| Vastly more Soviet troops were killed by Communist
| Chinese AK clones than by Stingers. But of course the
| impact on morale and logistics was profound.
|
| This is however not what we discuss here. How much US
| attrition was due to Islamic fundamentalist MANPAD use,
| during the whole War of Terror?
|
| See, it's irrelevant.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > The origin of Afghan resistance was Soviet invasion
|
| They also resisted the British quite well in 1842 [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1842_retreat_from_Kabul
|
| [Edit] In fact I think I'm right in saying that the last
| person to successfully invade Afghanistan was Alexander
| the Great, and even he had to stop campaigning when his
| army mutinied rather than continue ops in the Indian
| subcontinent.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I believe Genghis Khan and Tamerlane also successfully
| conquered Afghanistan.
| davchana wrote:
| The Sikh General Hari Singh Nalwa also uprooted &
| defeated Afghan Leaders like Dost Mohammad & others, &
| ruled Afghanistan Throne & build forts around there, even
| died in his last battle, but did not let the news of his
| death come out making sure his side wins, in around
| 1830s. [0]
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hari_Singh_Nalwa
| varjag wrote:
| True, "The Graveyard of Empires" is an old metaphor.
| ardit33 wrote:
| This is not true. After the Kosovo war, the KLA (Kosova
| Liberation Army), disbanded, and some of their leaders joined
| politics.
|
| Most just did what they used to do before the war: teachers,
| mechanics, drivers, engineers, nurses, students and so on...
|
| Same thing happened in many European countries after WW2 was
| over.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| in different contexts:
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas#Foundation
|
| -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_James#Quantrill's_Raider...
| yorwba wrote:
| > Per 10 U.S. Code Section 127e, the Pentagon can spend up to
| $100 million annually on support to foreign forces for counter-
| terrorism operations. In these programs foreign units conduct
| combat operations with US operational guidance. However, unlike
| 127e programs the Special Night Squads and the Gideon Force in
| Ethiopia were directly led by conventional British officers and
| non-commissioned officers embedded in those units.
|
| ...
|
| > Two insights appear to have particular salience still today.
| First, the use of irregular forces largely made up of foreigners
| with a backbone of British officers and non-commissioned officers
| was a force multiplier that had dramatic impacts in multiple
| theaters for the British.
|
| The article seems to argue that the US should emulate the British
| use of troops made up of colonial subjects commanded by the
| titular "British masters". But unlike the British colonial
| empire, the American sphere of influence is mostly comprised of
| sovereign countries whose governments might object to foreign-
| controlled guerillas operating in their territory primarily to
| protect American interests. So I'm not sure whether that's really
| an "insight of particular salience still today".
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >But unlike the British colonial empire, the American sphere of
| influence is mostly comprised of sovereign countries whose
| governments might object to foreign-controlled guerillas
| operating in their territory primarily to protect American
| interests.
|
| I think their use of "foreigners" there just refers to non-
| British, as both of their examples largely used locals for that
| role. Countries are often quite willing to allow US officers in
| train and assist their army.
| dx87 wrote:
| A more recent example would be the book "The Utility of Force" by
| General Rupert Smith. He argues that conventional militaries and
| tactics revolve around a concept of war that was made obsolete by
| nuclear weapons, and goes in depth regarding recent failings of
| NATO and the Iraq invasion, and how the conflicts should be
| handled in the age of instant global communication and media
| coverage.
| [deleted]
| toolslive wrote:
| The British had their asses handed to them by Yamashita in an off
| beat offensive "Blitzkrieg by bicycle"
|
| https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2019/06/28/japanese-style...
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(page generated 2021-01-01 23:01 UTC)