thedrifter
08-03-06, 05:43 AM
Exclusive: Changing to Win the War on Terror
Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
Author: Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: August 3, 2006
While America’s armed forces are fighting for our security around the world, they are engaged in another effort here as home. As FSM Contributing Editor Jeff Bearor explains, they are also fighting hard to adapt to the challenges of the war on terror and this new kind of enemy.
Changing to Win the War on Terror
Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
August 3, 2006
About 30 miles south of Washington, DC at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, the Marine Corps is planning for change and changing while still engaged in combat and other operations spread from the Horn of Africa in Djibouti through Iraq and Afghanistan into South East Asia. Change is difficult in the best of times. The Corps has recognized that the operational environments and our enemies’ methods of operations have morphed. The Corps has to change, on the fly, to be better prepared for current and future challenges.
No one wants to take on the US force-on-force. The preferred method of our enemies is to use our strengths against us. Our greatest strength is America’s ability to bring massive force to bear very quickly almost any place in the world. We control the seas, the air, and space. We can pinpoint military units and major hardware and destroy them fast, with incredible precision.
Our enemies’ strengths are “non-traditional” to us but make huge sense for them. Their rules of war are “there are no rules.” Everybody, including innocent people of their own blood, religion, or group are legitimate targets if the “cause” is advanced. They know that Americans will go to extraordinary lengths to minimize the suffering of innocents. So they hide among women and children, in hospitals, schools and Mosques because they know we will only bring force to bear after we’ve exhausted every other approach. They believe we can be attacked indirectly on the edges and we’ll eventually give up.
We’ve got to be just as good in fighting and winning in “war amongst the people” as our enemies are in waging this style of “irregular war.”
One way to have the greatest effect against terrorists and insurgents is to give local security forces, who have a huge advantage because they know the people and culture, better training and tools so that they can provide security for the local population and carry the fight. This is our method of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan but also a key effort in fighting terrorism and lawlessness around the world. Terrorism and extremism prosper in those areas of the world that are under and un-governed.
In a 1950’s era Quonset Hut next to the railroad tracks at Quantico, Marines from the Corps’ Training and Education Command are organizing the next iteration of training that will prepare Marines to train and work with indigenous security and armed forces. Starting with input from Vietnam-era US Marine advisors who trained, led, and lived with Vietnamese Marines and going back into the Corps’ history to the Marines’ Small War Manual of 1940, the Advisor Training Group will give this generation’s Marines the skills they need to help local forces reduce that dangerous “un-governed” space. This is a long term effort.
In Iraq and Afghanistan for instance, long after main US forces leave the country, there may be a sustained need on the ground for US advisor teams. Marines are training Iraqi and Afghan security forces now, in many cases accompanying the units during operations. Marines are providing training support to local security forces in east and west Africa, in the Sahel region of Africa and in other regions around the world. In fact, the Corps raised a new unit, called the Foreign Military Training Unit, at Camp Lejeune, NC last year specifically for this purpose. Marines see this training and advisor mission as a core competency and a vital part of the “long war” on terror. Hundreds of Marine NCOs and officers will be trained to function as advisors over the next few years.
At the western edge of Quantico in buildings built during the 1960s sits The Basic School for Marine second lieutenants. All new Marine officers attend this school before they go to their military specialty training. The school is 6 months long filled with 6 day a week, 16 hour days, with much of the time spent at ranges and in field exercises.
While The Basic School’s mission is just what its names implies, to give new ‘butter bars” the training they need to function as basic platoon commanders in combat, TBS has rapidly changed its focus to turn out new leaders ready for just about anything. “Tactical cunning,” cultural understanding, “outsmart a thinking enemy”, create a “bias for action,” so to “create a better hunter” gives focus to the changes. Incredible as it might sound to those who know Marines, new second lieutenants will leave TBS later this year even more mentally and physically tough than they are now.
Teaching lieutenants to have less focus on the “kinetic” aspects of the fight and more focus on having the desired effect on local populations may sound heretical. The Corps already does a superb job training Marines to fight and win. In the environments Marines are faced with today and those of the future, fighting is only part of the winning equation. Marines have to out-think enemies in environments where being able to train local security forces, enable humanitarian services for the local population, lay an ambush for terrorists, and protect your Marines are all part of a good days work.
The Marines are training new officers to be successful no matter the mission or region of the world, and no matter the situation. At the same time the Corps is better preparing enlisted Marines and officers to train and advise local forces around the world to reduce “un governed” space, the breeding ground for terrorists. The Corps has also created a training center specifically to provide Marines instruction about foreign cultures and languages since understanding culture is a key to successful counter-insurgency operations.
Even in times of peace these undertakings would be difficult. Making these changes at the same time tens of thousands of Marines are serving in combat is audacious to say the least. But that’s what America expects of her Marines, audacity … and success.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired) is a career Marine Corps officer, the former commanding officer of the Recruit Training Regiment at the US Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, SC, and has served as chief of staff, Marine Corps Training and Education Command, Quantico, VA.
Ellie
Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
Author: Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: August 3, 2006
While America’s armed forces are fighting for our security around the world, they are engaged in another effort here as home. As FSM Contributing Editor Jeff Bearor explains, they are also fighting hard to adapt to the challenges of the war on terror and this new kind of enemy.
Changing to Win the War on Terror
Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired)
August 3, 2006
About 30 miles south of Washington, DC at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, the Marine Corps is planning for change and changing while still engaged in combat and other operations spread from the Horn of Africa in Djibouti through Iraq and Afghanistan into South East Asia. Change is difficult in the best of times. The Corps has recognized that the operational environments and our enemies’ methods of operations have morphed. The Corps has to change, on the fly, to be better prepared for current and future challenges.
No one wants to take on the US force-on-force. The preferred method of our enemies is to use our strengths against us. Our greatest strength is America’s ability to bring massive force to bear very quickly almost any place in the world. We control the seas, the air, and space. We can pinpoint military units and major hardware and destroy them fast, with incredible precision.
Our enemies’ strengths are “non-traditional” to us but make huge sense for them. Their rules of war are “there are no rules.” Everybody, including innocent people of their own blood, religion, or group are legitimate targets if the “cause” is advanced. They know that Americans will go to extraordinary lengths to minimize the suffering of innocents. So they hide among women and children, in hospitals, schools and Mosques because they know we will only bring force to bear after we’ve exhausted every other approach. They believe we can be attacked indirectly on the edges and we’ll eventually give up.
We’ve got to be just as good in fighting and winning in “war amongst the people” as our enemies are in waging this style of “irregular war.”
One way to have the greatest effect against terrorists and insurgents is to give local security forces, who have a huge advantage because they know the people and culture, better training and tools so that they can provide security for the local population and carry the fight. This is our method of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan but also a key effort in fighting terrorism and lawlessness around the world. Terrorism and extremism prosper in those areas of the world that are under and un-governed.
In a 1950’s era Quonset Hut next to the railroad tracks at Quantico, Marines from the Corps’ Training and Education Command are organizing the next iteration of training that will prepare Marines to train and work with indigenous security and armed forces. Starting with input from Vietnam-era US Marine advisors who trained, led, and lived with Vietnamese Marines and going back into the Corps’ history to the Marines’ Small War Manual of 1940, the Advisor Training Group will give this generation’s Marines the skills they need to help local forces reduce that dangerous “un-governed” space. This is a long term effort.
In Iraq and Afghanistan for instance, long after main US forces leave the country, there may be a sustained need on the ground for US advisor teams. Marines are training Iraqi and Afghan security forces now, in many cases accompanying the units during operations. Marines are providing training support to local security forces in east and west Africa, in the Sahel region of Africa and in other regions around the world. In fact, the Corps raised a new unit, called the Foreign Military Training Unit, at Camp Lejeune, NC last year specifically for this purpose. Marines see this training and advisor mission as a core competency and a vital part of the “long war” on terror. Hundreds of Marine NCOs and officers will be trained to function as advisors over the next few years.
At the western edge of Quantico in buildings built during the 1960s sits The Basic School for Marine second lieutenants. All new Marine officers attend this school before they go to their military specialty training. The school is 6 months long filled with 6 day a week, 16 hour days, with much of the time spent at ranges and in field exercises.
While The Basic School’s mission is just what its names implies, to give new ‘butter bars” the training they need to function as basic platoon commanders in combat, TBS has rapidly changed its focus to turn out new leaders ready for just about anything. “Tactical cunning,” cultural understanding, “outsmart a thinking enemy”, create a “bias for action,” so to “create a better hunter” gives focus to the changes. Incredible as it might sound to those who know Marines, new second lieutenants will leave TBS later this year even more mentally and physically tough than they are now.
Teaching lieutenants to have less focus on the “kinetic” aspects of the fight and more focus on having the desired effect on local populations may sound heretical. The Corps already does a superb job training Marines to fight and win. In the environments Marines are faced with today and those of the future, fighting is only part of the winning equation. Marines have to out-think enemies in environments where being able to train local security forces, enable humanitarian services for the local population, lay an ambush for terrorists, and protect your Marines are all part of a good days work.
The Marines are training new officers to be successful no matter the mission or region of the world, and no matter the situation. At the same time the Corps is better preparing enlisted Marines and officers to train and advise local forces around the world to reduce “un governed” space, the breeding ground for terrorists. The Corps has also created a training center specifically to provide Marines instruction about foreign cultures and languages since understanding culture is a key to successful counter-insurgency operations.
Even in times of peace these undertakings would be difficult. Making these changes at the same time tens of thousands of Marines are serving in combat is audacious to say the least. But that’s what America expects of her Marines, audacity … and success.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Colonel Jeff Bearor USMC (Retired) is a career Marine Corps officer, the former commanding officer of the Recruit Training Regiment at the US Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, SC, and has served as chief of staff, Marine Corps Training and Education Command, Quantico, VA.
Ellie