So I’m reading Robert D. Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts.  The Prologue - Injun Country - might very well be the best twelve pages I have ever read.  It should be required reading in all professional military training.  No matter how much reading you have done, no matter who you have met, no matter what your experiences have been, there is no replacement for a careful study of this Chapter.  You cannot understand the current state of affairs in the world today, the so-called global war on terror, until you have read these pages.  Kaplan sums up in a tidy and small package a wealth of knowledge and wisdom concerning the nature of imperial defense of the homeland.  Enough said.  Buy the book and read it.

Kaplan also has much wisdom concerning the nature of embedded reporters and journalists in later pages of the book, but this is a dialogue for another time.  Being an aficionado of the Small Wars Journal myself, I am disappointed that it took reading Kaplan’s book to remind me of several important observations found therein.  On page 270 of Kaplan’s book we read the following:

As if foreseeing the situation in Iraq, the Manual notes that after major fighting:

… hostile forces will withdraw into the more remote parts of the country, or will be dispersed into numerous small groups which continue to oppose the occupation.  Even though the recognized leaders may capitulate, subordinate commanders often refuse to abide by the terms of the capitulation.  Escaping to the hinterland, they assemble heterogeneous armed groups of patriotic soldiers, malcontents, notorious outlaws … and by means of guerrilla warfare, continue to harass and oppose the intervening force in its attempt to restore peace and good order throughout the country as a whole.

Then Kaplan notes other sections of the Small Wars Manual, citing it to recommend that:

To countervail such hostile forces, numerous presence patrols must be organized with the help of the native militias, and outposts erected that are “dispersed over a wide area, in order to afford the maximum protection to the peaceful inhabitants of the country.”

So much for the detractors of the Small Wars Manual.  Seriously.  Summed up in these words are reasons for rejecting any supposed lack of knowledge or anticipation of a developing insurgency after toppling the Iraqi regime, foresight into dismounted patrols, and prediction of the utility of combat outposts.  All the planners had to do was read the Small Wars Manual.  Further, the Marines were the first to employ the concept of combat outposts in Iraq (specifically in Ramadi), and while this evolved to combination outposts / police precincts in Fallujah in 2007, the idea was basically the same (and even more in tune with the Small Wars Manual than in Ramadi).

There is nothing new under the sun.  Combat outposts are not new to Iraq COIN.  They have been employed by the Marines for decades.  And recollecting the nature of the initial combat operations, major urban areas were avoided and bypassed.  MOUT (military operations on urban terrain) has always been hard on any armed forces, and it was left to the subsequent counterinsurgency effort.  Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul, and many other areas were left untouched for months while the assumed center of gravity was targeted - Baghdad and the center of government.

No matter how much group think was present in the Pentagon prior to the invasion of Iraq, there is simply no excuse for not anticipating the insurgency.  It’s right there in the Small Wars Manual.