Developing joint counterinsurgency doctrine: an airman's perspective

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.

The U.S. military's aversion to counterinsurgency . . . is a function of 60 years of preoccupation with high-technology conventional warfare against other states and accelerated substitution of machines for combat manpower, most notably aerial standoff precision firepower for large ground forces. (27)

Even more scathing is James Corum's Fighting the War on Terror: A Counterinsurgency Strategy. His previous book, Airpower in Small Wars, sought to consign airpower (which he considers exclusively in an aircraft context) to a limited supporting role in COIN campaigns. Although debatable, the view expressed in Airpower in Small Wars is at least comprehensible given the state of aviation technology during the time period of the campaigns he examined. Corum's current book is puzzling, however, as he appears to use it to demean technology generally, and the U.S. Air Force specifically. (28) It does not fully appreciate the potential of today's airpower in COIN strategies.

For its part, FM 3-24 mentions technology only about a half-dozen times outside of the airpower annex, and several of those references are rather disparaging. Airmen see the world differently. They believe that high tech has the potential to change COIN operations as dramatically as it has transformed military operations at other points along the conflict spectrum. Accordingly, Airmen proudly proclaim that they are, among many things, "technology-focused professionals," (29) a cultural attribute that distinguishes them from the Army COIN culture (although perhaps not other parts of the Army).

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Soldiers may consider technology differently from Airmen because of the relative role tradition plays in their Weltanschauung. Historian Charles Townshend observes:

Soldiers have seldom led the way in technological development, and have often been reluctant to welcome new weapons. Tradition has always been important in fostering the esprit de corps of fighting units, and can lead to fossilization. (30)

Adherence to ground force tradition may explain FM 3-24's preference for manpower-intensive COIN solutions as opposed to an Airman's inclination to look for ways to replace troops with technology. In discussing the reluctance of World War I soldiers to embrace the introduction of the then-new technology of the machinegun, author Anthony Smith recognizes the strong role of tradition in their thinking. He described the attitude of many soldiers toward machinegun technology and the "close fight":

Where was the luster in merely mowing down the enemy? . . . Where was the excitement and the honor one might gain in a fight which was man to man? . . . The [machinegun] was as wrongful in its status as showing up at Agincourt with rifles or grenades. It might win the day, but without a trace of glory. (31)

This is certainly not an airminded approach to war. From the very beginning, advocates of the air weapon sought means of using it that avoided the sort of "glory" that led to the close-combat slaughter and stalemate of World War I.