http://warontherocks.com/2015/07/training-foreign-military-forces-quality-vs-quantity/?singlepage=1
The United States has sent its latest tranche of 450 troops to Al Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq to train that country's new army recruits. The hope is that this will bolster the Iraqi army, which could make the difference in pushing back the Islamic State. But the American model for large-scale development of partner nation armies is teetering on the brink of failure. Despite vast sums of money and years of effort, America's allies in Iraq and Afghanistan seem largely uninterested in fighting without U.S. assistance.
...
The Iraqi army, said Carter, lacks the will to fight. Faced with an enemy it had the skill and numerical advantage to defeat, the force simply folded. But what Carter said next highlights a fundamental misapprehension: "we can give them training, we can give them equipment, we obviously can't give them the will to fight."
...
. The modern U.S. military method for training foreign militaries gives little attention to the moral and psychological aspects of military formation. It teaches allied soldiers to shoot straight, but it does a poor job at explaining why and for what cause they are shooting (or just as importantly, when and why they should not shoot). These facets of military preparation are a conceptual afterthought, most likely because the task of developing host nation security forces is so different from the preferred U.S. style of warfare.
On a 2010 trip to Afghanistan, I witnessed the corrosive effects of drug-addicted police, and others who had no desire to either fight or win "hearts and minds." I was told by a senior U.S. military official that I was talking about cancer while the patient was hemorrhaging. What he meant was that in the face of a Taliban threat, large quantities of police were needed, even if they were poorly trained. High-quality, motivated police were a luxury, not a necessity.
This massive push for numbers and the attendant dilution of training is completely at odds with building a cohesive army with the will to stand and fight, predicated upon an unproven assumption that a "large footprint" is itself a decisive strategy. Despite a rock solid belief that vast numbers of host nation forces are necessary to the fight, on the battlefield, America has become increasingly reliant on two types of foreign forces distinguished by their smaller sizes: special operators and religious or ethnic partisans.
The trouble with partisan forces, of course, is that they have abundant will to fight, but generally a different agenda from either the U.S. partners or their own national government.
The United States has sent its latest tranche of 450 troops to Al Taqaddum Air Base in Iraq to train that country's new army recruits. The hope is that this will bolster the Iraqi army, which could make the difference in pushing back the Islamic State. But the American model for large-scale development of partner nation armies is teetering on the brink of failure. Despite vast sums of money and years of effort, America's allies in Iraq and Afghanistan seem largely uninterested in fighting without U.S. assistance.
...
The Iraqi army, said Carter, lacks the will to fight. Faced with an enemy it had the skill and numerical advantage to defeat, the force simply folded. But what Carter said next highlights a fundamental misapprehension: "we can give them training, we can give them equipment, we obviously can't give them the will to fight."
...
. The modern U.S. military method for training foreign militaries gives little attention to the moral and psychological aspects of military formation. It teaches allied soldiers to shoot straight, but it does a poor job at explaining why and for what cause they are shooting (or just as importantly, when and why they should not shoot). These facets of military preparation are a conceptual afterthought, most likely because the task of developing host nation security forces is so different from the preferred U.S. style of warfare.
On a 2010 trip to Afghanistan, I witnessed the corrosive effects of drug-addicted police, and others who had no desire to either fight or win "hearts and minds." I was told by a senior U.S. military official that I was talking about cancer while the patient was hemorrhaging. What he meant was that in the face of a Taliban threat, large quantities of police were needed, even if they were poorly trained. High-quality, motivated police were a luxury, not a necessity.
This massive push for numbers and the attendant dilution of training is completely at odds with building a cohesive army with the will to stand and fight, predicated upon an unproven assumption that a "large footprint" is itself a decisive strategy. Despite a rock solid belief that vast numbers of host nation forces are necessary to the fight, on the battlefield, America has become increasingly reliant on two types of foreign forces distinguished by their smaller sizes: special operators and religious or ethnic partisans.
The trouble with partisan forces, of course, is that they have abundant will to fight, but generally a different agenda from either the U.S. partners or their own national government.
