The US Army has evolved to become one of the world’s most experienced practitioners in modern counter-insurgency. According to General Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff, US Army, after nearly a decade of military intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia, many hard-earned lessons have been learnt and applied in relation to tactics, operations, transformation, training, coalition interoperability and modernisation.

The conflict in Iraq has been a defining experience for the US Army, which has markedly transformed its approach to counterinsurgency war fighting. “Since the Iraq conflict we have totally reshaped the force from a division centred force that was at the time built around a Divisional headquarters,” explained General Chiarelli.

“I was one of the last Divisional Commanders with the 1st Cavalry Division to deploy to Iraq with all my organic brigades. I had three Manoeuvre Brigades, an Artillery Brigade that we made into a Manoeuvre Brigade (a fourth Manoeuvre Brigade). We also had an Aviation Brigade, an Engineer Brigade and separate battalions for Military Intelligence, Signals and even an Air Defence Battalion. That is how we were constructed,” he said. “In contrast, today, the Brigade Combat Team is the centrepiece of the US Army,” he added. Another example of the US Army’s process of transformation has been the growing cooperation with the US Government agencies to achieve non-kinetic objectives as demonstrated by the whole-ofgovernment approach.

“The whole-of-government approach is absolutely critical today and that is a huge lesson we have learnt from these conflicts. In counter-insurgency, it is not just the armed forces that are needed. The whole government needs to be involved with a team of professionals who are available to an operational commander that goes in and looks at non-kinetic effects that can be applied. These are critical to winning the trust and confidence of the people. I always say ‘trust and confidence’ as opposed to ‘hearts and minds’. Trust and confidence is what we try to gain,” he said.

“however, we still need a force that can be very kinetic when required. The application of combat power in any war is going to be constant. There are going to be times when that is exactly what has to be done,” he added.

he added, “We see that probably in a larger extent in Afghanistan today than even at the height of fighting that was witnessed in Iraq. Combat power is always constant and leaders always have a responsibility to make sure their soldiers use force when required.”

Strategy in Afghanistan

In recent years, the US Army’s contribution to Afghanistan has been increasingly significant, playing a major role in expanding the authority of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), by escalating operations against the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan.

“In the last six months, conditions have improved in Afghanistan. The ‘surge’ of additional forces has played a role, which has allowed us to live with and protect the population, and give the opportunity for non-kinetic effects to take hold. That is an important move in the right direction in Afghanistan today. The capacity for the US Army to tap into and mobilise more troops, previously culminated in Iraq and now more recently in Afghanistan with the ‘surge’ strategies, which provided additional forces for offensive operations and reconstruction related tasks. In addition, the increased troop strength has provided greater flexibility to field commanders who are intend on accelerating the training and expansion of the Afghan security forces,” he said.

“In Iraq, the increasing capability of the Iraqi Army was critical to the force reductions in coalition troops that we have seen today. The ability of the Iraqi Army to provide security for its people is much greater than our ability. In Afghanistan the campaign takes on a whole-of-government approach. One of those non-kinetic effects is training the Afghan Army. In fact, there are huge contributions being made by Australia and other nations in training the Afghan Army and Police. We cannot separate both the increase in forces (actual boots on the ground) from what we have done to build up the Afghan Army. The major reason for the success we are having today is our ability to train and deploy both the Afghan Army and Police. They are the two critical institutions that are going to help provide security for the Afghan people,” he added.

The Importance of Reserves

In order to augment troop strength for the ‘surge’ strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, much of the burden was shouldered by the US Army, particularly its reserve units, which have made an important contribution.

“Key to our ability to increase troop strength has been our capacity to operationalise our reserve components. The US Army has about 5,69,000 active component soldiers, but this increases to over 1.1 million when we count our reserve components. If there is anything we have come to rely on it is our operationalised reserve component, which we can turn to for enablers. I do not mean necessarily combat formations, although we have combat formations in the national Guard, the vast majority of our reserve component enablers are aviation, engineers and other specialities.

“The reserve component training system has been increased significantly because of multiple deployments. It is not uncommon now to find a reserve component soldier either from the Army national Guard or the Army Reserve that has been deployed on three or four tours or units that have deployed overseas more than once,” he explained.

“As a consequence, what we have is a much more highly trained force than we ever had before. Earlier there was only 39 days of training every year and a lot of that was spent on state missions. State missions are still important which is why the reserve component still continue to play a key role in their individual states particularly in disaster relief, but their contribution to the wars both in Iraq and Afghanistan remains significant,” he added.

“Today when units deploy they have upwards of 30 days additional training, sometimes even more depending on the mission. In fact, depending on the mission it can be anywhere from 15 days to 60 days additional training. They are now an extremely well-trained force with the extra investment in training, plus the combat experience they have gained. They are usually deployed for a total mobilisation of 12 months. But we are trying to get them to the point where they are five years at home before they are redeployed again.” said the General.

“We want to increase that to a ratio of 1:5 which would be 60 months at home. We are trying to get the active component of the force to a ratio of 1:3 and we will not call on them as much, but we still need their services and special capabilities as we have invested in many of those capabilities in the reserve components. A large majority of our engineering forces are in the reserve components which makes a lot of sense because many of them undertake engineering type jobs in civilian life and bring those same skills to their formations,” he added.

The General further affirmed, “As someone who has been in the Army for 38 years, I never again want to see training levels to go back to where they were before because it allows quick and ready access when we need them with very little time required for preparation and additional training before they are deployed. Our force is amazingly resilient. Basically, we have asked less than one per cent of our population to fight two wars for 10 years. Today, our retention and recruiting rates have gone right through the roof. In fact, 99 per cent of the recruits we have in the US Army are high school graduates. Wavers are very uncommon,” he said.

“Even though we are involved in a campaign overseas, support for the American military at least at home has never been higher. In my opinion, it is absolutely essential that we maintain the readiness that we have gained over the last decade of conflict and ensure we have an operationalised reserve. We need to have the ability to call on a very professional and well-trained force and have ready access to that reserve component depending on wherever our national security interests may take us in the future. Today we like to talk about it as the ‘One Army’, which includes the reserve components, national Guard, army reserve and the active component,” he added.

Coalition Interoperability

A major aspect of the campaign in Afghanistan has been the requirement to manage coalition partners that have deployed troop contingents in support of the US alliance. In this context, the US Army also has a key supporting role in mentoring and training multinational coalition forces. “For example, with IEDs, the US Army helps to prepare coalition forces to come up against a threat that they have never previously experienced. We also have helped them with tactics, techniques and procedures, and with different kinds of equipment and enablers,” said General Chiarelli.

“There have been times when those who have joined in the alliance with us have asked for assistance. I remember, in Iraq, night vision was considered a key piece of equipment for many of our allies, which we often provided. Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is another thing where we have had a quantitative and possibly qualitative edge for a while, and the product of that ISR is something that we have provided to the alliance whenever possible. however, there are huge interoperability issues among coalition forces which we have identified and tried to address. Inside the NATO framework there are conferences and forums that allow us to address many of the interoperability issues. The real thing is to identify the issues and then agree to a timetable to get them fixed,” he stated.

“Too often they become lessons learnt, which implies that those lessons are truly going to be learnt and acted upon. One of the areas, at least from my experience, is in command and control. Unity of command is a critical issue and the ability to share information is essential in major conflicts,” he added.

Modernisation

The US Army is at present engaged in a process of modernisation and transformation with the introduction of the revolutionary concept known as ‘The network’, which streamlines and disseminates electronic intelligence from the tactical to the strategic level, and vice versa, in real time.

According to General Chiarelli, when we speak of The network we are just not talking about the tactical and operational level of forces during combat. It will be a network that is not only found in theatre with individual soldiers, both at the tactical and operational and even strategic level, but when they are training back home to be deployed.

“It is that complete network that would allow a soldier at the national training centre to see a similar picture as the soldier who is actually on the ground, involved in theatre operations and be able to see that real time and utilise that in training to prepare to relieve that same soldier who is deployed. To me, this is the future,” he added.

“Everything revolves around that and the capability it brings both to the individual soldier and the collective formation. In getting The network down to ‘The Edge’, to the individual soldier, is really the centrepiece of the Army’s modernisation,” he stated.