How to Win in Iraq

Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005

Summary:  Because they lack a coherent strategy, U.S. forces in Iraq have failed to defeat the insurgency or improve security. Winning will require a new approach to counterinsurgency, one that focuses on providing security to Iraqis rather than hunting down insurgents. And it will take at least a decade.

ANDREW F. KREPINEVICH, JR., is Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University. He is the author of The Army and Vietnam.

The key to securing the centers of gravity in the current war is to recognize that U.S. forces have overwhelming advantages in terms of combat power and mobility but a key disadvantage in terms of intelligence. If they know who the insurgents are and where they are, they can quickly suppress the insurgency. The Iraqi people are the best source of this intelligence. But U.S. forces and their allies can only gain this knowledge by winning locals' hearts and minds -- that is, by convincing them that the insurgents' defeat is in their interest and that they can share intelligence about them without fear of insurgent reprisals.

HISTORY LESSONS

Insurgencies are nearly as old as warfare itself, so there is no shortage of past counterinsurgency strategies to draw on. The Romans suppressed rebellions with such ferocity and ruthlessness that it was said they would "create a desert and call it peace." The British often maintained order through a divide-and-conquer strategy. They would support one of several factions vying for power, and in return for this support the favored group would respect British interests in that part of the world. Neither of these strategies is attractive today. The Roman approach clearly conflicts with American values, and the British strategy would lead to a client-sponsor relationship with a nondemocratic regime -- hardly what the Bush administration hopes to foster in Iraq.

During the Vietnam War, U.S. strategy focused on killing insurgents at the expense of winning hearts and minds. This search-and-destroy strategy ultimately failed, but it evidently continues to exert a strong pull on the U.S. military, as indicated by statements like that of a senior army commander in Iraq who declared, "[I] don't think we will put much energy into trying the old saying, 'win the hearts and minds.' I don't look at it as one of the metrics of success." Having left the business of waging counterinsurgency warfare over 30 years ago, the U.S. military is running the risk of failing to do what is needed most (win Iraqis' hearts and minds) in favor of what it has traditionally done best (seek out the enemy and destroy him). Thus, U.S. forces have recently pushed forward with more offensive operations of this type in western Iraq, which has produced some insurgent casualties but had a negligible effect on overall security.

The oil-spot strategy, in contrast, focuses on establishing security for the population precisely for the sake of winning hearts and minds. In the 1950s, the British used it successfully in Malaya, as did the Filipinos against the Huk insurgents. Given the centers of gravity and the limits of U.S. forces in Iraq, an oil-spot approach -- in which operations would be oriented around securing the population and then gradually but inexorably expanded to increase control over contested areas -- could work.

Coalition forces and local militias, such as the Kurdish Pesh Merga, now provide a high level of security in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. These areas comprise the country's true "Green Zone" (the term normally used to describe the heavily fortified part of Baghdad where U.S. headquarters are located). In these provinces, people lead relatively normal and secure lives. The rest of the country -- the "Red Zone" -- is made up of the generally unsecured provinces of Anbar, Baghdad, Nineveh, and Salah ad Din, each of which has a sizable or dominant Sunni Arab population. The oil-spot campaign should start by enhancing security in the Green Zone. The U.S. and Iraqi governments should also focus reconstruction efforts here, in order to reward loyalty to the government and to minimize "security premium" expenses on projects.

To start, U.S. and coalition forces must do much more to aid and develop the capabilities of their Iraqi counterparts in counterinsurgency operations: training them, embedding U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraqi units, and providing U.S. quick-reaction forces to support the Iraqis, if needed. The embedding effort should be far more extensive than currently planned, and some of the U.S. Army's best soldiers should be assigned to this initiative. It would involve some risk, since embedded U.S. personnel are likely to suffer more casualties than they would in all-U.S. units. But the payoff would be high as well.

The challenges associated with training Iraqi security forces are well documented, but the United States could still dramatically improve on its current efforts. Embedding more and higher-quality U.S. soldiers in Iraqi units would be like inserting a steel reinforcing rod into hardening concrete. A higher number of embedded soldiers would support the training of Iraqi officers, as well as facilitate the identification and advancement of capable Iraqi leaders (and weed out substandard ones). Finally, by concentrating Iraqi forces in generally secure areas and in a few areas selected for security "offensives," the oil-spot strategy would minimize the risk that newly trained Iraqi units will find themselves in over their heads and without adequate support.

The U.S. high command must also end the pernicious practice of rotating senior military and civilian leaders in and out of Iraq as though they are interchangeable. Generals who have demonstrated competence in dealing with insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq have been recalled to stateside duty. Such officers should be promoted and retained in Iraq for an extended period. Those who fail should be rotated back home and replaced. As history has shown time and again, capable leaders are "force multipliers": they greatly enhance the effectiveness of the troops under their command.