WASHINGTON, 6 October 2006 — Oops! After five years in Afghanistan, and almost four in Iraq, the US military is admitting to — what some observers see — as failed policy in the region. According to a new counterinsurgency doctrine scheduled for release in November, the US Army and Marines recognize, from hard lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, that their strategy of force is not winning any wars. Instead, the manual underscores the protection of civilians as the bedrock element of new-think military strategy.

“The more force used, the less effective it is,” the draft manual says. An advance copy of the new doctrine was obtained and reported in yesterday’s New York Times. “Tactical success guarantees nothing,” notes the report, which warns against putting too much weight on strict military solutions.

The manual also cautions troops against retreating to their bases, which results in little interaction with civilians, and leads to failure to obtain intelligence: “The more you protect your force, the less secure you are.” A retired Marine infantry officer, Frank Hoffman, who currently works as a research fellow for the Marines, told the NYT that in 2005, the Marines often lacked sufficient forces to safeguard civilians.

This resulted in Marines “neutralizing an identifiable foe,” while not enabling troops to “stay and work with the population the way the classical counterinsurgency would suggest.” The new doctrine drew on some of the classic texts on counterinsurgency by Middle East experts such as T.E. Lawrence of Arabia, and Algerian-expert David Galula.

Drafting the new field manual began a year ago, reports the Times, under the guidance of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and Lt. Gen. James Mattis, former commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command and current chief of the First Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Ca.

A positive aspect of the manual — unlike prior to the invasion of Iraq, when the Pentagon ignored expert’s advice — is that it sought out expertise by academics and Middle East experts; they received over 800 responses.

“We are codifying the best practices of previous counterinsurgency campaigns and the lessons we have learned from Iraq and Afghanistan to help our forces succeed in the current fight and prepare for the future,” Lt. Col. John Nagl, a drafter of the doctrine, told the Times.

Another interesting fact revealed in the manual is that the US Army and Marines appear to be listening to the advice of their enlisted, the young soldiers and Marines who spend the most time in contact with civilians.

“In many ways, this is a bottom-up change. The young soldiers who had been through Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, understood why we need to do this,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Conrad Crane, the director of the Military History Institute at the Army War College, who was a principle drafter of the new doctrine. But some Mideast experts believe this new manual is too late to help the troops win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“What strikes me about this is what is missing from it ... which is any reference to the Army intelligence report of two weeks ago that said that in Anbar province — where the Sunni insurgency is located — the US armed forces there cannot bring that province under control. So the new counter-insurgency policy comes at a time when the US military is essentially admitting that the military struggle in Iraq is nearing a end without the US achieving victory,” said Chris Toensing, editor of the Washington-based Middle East Report, a progressive quarterly on contemporary Middle East affairs (www.merip.org).

“I don’t think this new counterinsurgency strategy is intended for Iraq, but for the lessons that can be applied in the future,” said Toensing.

“Because the damage is done in Iraq, and the number of the troops they would need to uphold this strategy is not there, and they are not coming.”