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Stability Operations Now Part of Army’s Core Mission

By Charlie

While embracing reality, this move is likely to rankle some of the Army's "old corps." What I mean by that is that there is a sizeable chunk of the Army, especially in the combat arms branches, that think the mission of the infantry is only "to close with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver to defeat or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack." Not included in that is building schools, policing foreign cities, monitoring infrastructure, training local security forces,etc.

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Feb. 25, 2008) -- Soldiers have been in Iraq keeping the peace, battling insurgents, protecting civilians and helping to rebuild that country for nearly five years. The Army now recognizes that work, called “stability operations,” as part of a Soldier’s core mission and made it so in the new field manual for operations, FM 3-0, which will be released later this week.

The change comes because the U.S. government has identified that failed and failing states are breeding grounds for terrorists and insurgents, said Lt. Col. James H. Boozell, an Army G3 branch chief for the stability operations and irregular warfare division at the Pentagon.

“When local government can’t provide the civil security and civil control necessary for its people, terrorists are allowed to thrive,” he said. “If we stabilize governance, it will provide the level of civil security and control that disallows the growth of terrorism and insurgency.”

What we face is a near-term certainty of the continuation of "irregular warfare" wherever we fight, in the brushfire war after next. It is good that the Army recognizes this, but it will be a continuing challenge to split-train our 4GW forces on 3GW tactics. Face it, the 3GW mindset isn't going away any time soon.

February 26, 2008 02:36 PM Army ~ Strategery