The Strategic Corporal in Afghanistan

In 1999 Commandant of the Marine Corps Charles Krulak wrote an article on “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War.”  It depicts a corporal, the entry level for non-commissioned officers (NCOs), who is equally skilled at leading a squad of a dozen volunteer enlisted Marines in warfighting, in peace-keeping and in humanitarian assistance.

The Three Block War is a metaphor for the environment in which all of these skills may be needed more or less simultaneously.  “In Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia the unique challenges of military operations other-than-war . . . were combined with the disparate challenges of mid-intensity conflict.”  In conflicts like these “Marines may be confronted by the entire spectrum of tactical challenges in the span of a few hours and within the space of three contiguous city blocks.”

The reason why the corporal in charge is a Strategic Corporal is that he may at times “be the most conspicuous symbol of American foreign policy and …  potentially influence not only the immediate tactical situation, but the operational and strategic levels as well.”

It’s a lot to ask of a 19-22-year-old corporal with 2-3 years of service.  All the more so since generals also expect NCOs to “be able to read the cultural terrain” like majors and colonels.

Afghanistan may not be the kind of Three Block War General Krulak had in mind, but it certainly involves military operations other-than-war since the US is engaged in a counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign (even if we’ve stopped calling it that) to win the hearts and minds of Afghan civilians as we suppress what we regard as an insurgency by the militant Islamic Taliban faction.  Think of it as a Two Block War.

But in this war where every soldier or Marine has a cell phone with camera and texting and 24/7 connection to the Internet, we are far more likely to hear about bad symbols of US foreign policy than good ones.  To mention one of the worst, in March 2012 Robert Bales, an Army staff sergeant and family man with a good record and three prior combat tours in Iraq, left his base one night and murdered 16 Afghan men, women and children.

To the Afghans, however, the carelessness of  US military authorities in burning copies of the Koran in its possession was even more horrendous.  If their violent reaction surprised you as it did me, we both obviously need help reading the cultural terrain.

Is this just war as it always has been?  Is Afghanistan just Vietnam for slow learners?  

I see differences.  One is that many of the troops who fought in Vietnam were draftees.  The protests of their family and friends and veterans and sympathizers back home became noisy and raucous as the war continued without apparent progress for eight years.  To derail such opposition, President Nixon let the draft expire, and we’ve fought every war since with all-volunteer forces (AVF).  Although the Afghan war has gone on without apparent progress longer than Vietnam, there are few protests.  The public is unengaged.

So is Congress.  Current defense budgets are higher in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars than at any time since World War II, including the Vietnam years, but we have fewer combat brigades (look inside this book) because fewer budget dollars trickle down to the AVF.  So to fight two smaller-than-Vietnam wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has had to resort to multiple combat deployments, not only of regular forces but also of reserve and National Guard units.  How do reserve and Guard members hold a job when every third year they’re called back into active duty?

Another difference is in the nature of combat.  Mines and booby traps are part of every war, but in Iraq and now in Afghanistan it’s as if they’ve taken it over, at least in the minds of the AVF on the ground.  Their name, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suggests how easy they are to make and install, and indeed they’re encountered in every block of the Two Block War.  IEDs also cause injuries that may be worse than the military is prepared to recognize or knows how to treat.  Inadequately treated, the trauma may be exacerbated by the strains of successive combat deployments.  How else to understand what Sergeant Bales did?

A fourth difference is that Vietnam never had any strategic justification other than the domino theory, which was based on serious misreading of the cultural terrain in Southeast Asia and, for that matter, in world communism.  Afghanistan, by contrast, had a clear justification: attacking Al Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11, and denying them their safe haven under the Taliban.

But today Al Qaeda is in hiding across the Afghanistan border in Pakistan with many of its leaders killed, including its founder, Osama bin Laden, and others hounded by aerial drones and commandos.  It has no safe haven under the Taliban (whose leaders are also in hiding) or anywhere in Afghanistan.  Nor has it successfully attacked the US since 9/11.

Our war with the Taliban has now come to resemble Vietnam—without apparent progress or strategic purpose—and is impairing both the health and morale of the AVF.  It is time to end the former and restore the latter.  Given our refusal to deal with the greater threats of global warming, as another Marine general warned, we’re going need the AVF for other wars.